


Backstage of Self

by EverySoul



Series: Paalm Rights [2]
Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dramedy, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gender Issues, Identity Issues, Multi, Musicals, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverySoul/pseuds/EverySoul
Summary: After 1100 years spent marching to someone else's drum, how does a shapeshifting anthropophagic ex-secret-agent serial killer go about figuring out their own interests?Seriously. Not a rhetorical question. Time-sensitive and please help.
Relationships: Marasi Colms/MeLaan, MeLaan/Wayne (Mistborn), Paalm/Waxillium "Wax" Ladrian (one-sided), Steris Harms/Waxillium "Wax" Ladrian
Series: Paalm Rights [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088489
Comments: 29
Kudos: 31





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Let Me Go spawned a secondary idea, of...a rather different overall tone, which can probably be determined by the tags on this fic. Said tonal shift sort of demanded a prologue to bridge that gap.

Even if she was about to be rich, Perr really would have exchanged that for being anywhere else.

The robbery was going well. Really it was. Everyone had been gathered into a clump on the floor, and Dent was relieving them of their valuables, everyone shifting vaguely as coins and jewelry slid or flew past them. The gaunt Lurcher wore a long black coat that must have been sweltering in the dry heat of the Southern Roughs, and wooden plates on his chest and back made him practically bulletproof. His Thug, Riza, was moving through the gathered hostages, taking anything that Dent's ironpull wasn't already handling.

"If you think about it," Dent announced, his voice wispy and laced with contempt, "this is really your fault." He gestured with his gun at a young woman, who flinched as Riza removed her earrings. "This isn't New Seran, now, is it?" The earring came free, and flew to Dent's hand. He tossed it into a pack.

All Perr had to do to get a cut was point a gun at people who were already too frightened to move.

"You really thought you could just come out here, and set up your little boom town, and nobody would notice?" Dent intoned. "And then nothing happens for a few months, so you just go right ahead and hold a party? It's like watching a horse drop dead and wondering why there aren't any buzzards around yet. Gotta wait for things to ripen a little. Not that the analogy would make any sense to you."

A man whimpered.

This went against what her da had always told her about guns. He'd told her never to point a gun at anyone she didn't want to kill, and she really didn't want to kill anyone in cold blood. The idea gave her a sick feeling in her stomach, but there were three other people who  _ did  _ seem to want to go ahead with it, and if she backed out now, there was a good chance one of them would shoot her.

Stress made her hungry, and she took a bite of the apple she had in her free hand, shoving it up under her mask.

The guy next to her— Cal, she was pretty sure, but Dent hadn't spent a lot of time on the non-Allomancers in the group— glared at her. "Cut it out," he hissed, the words garbled by the cloth mask he had over his face. He gestured his crossbow at the hostages.

"I'm hungry," Perr protested.

"You can be hungry later," Cal snapped. "Nobody eats apples in the middle of a robbery. It's not...dignified."

"It...could be dignified," Perr said. "Makes us look calmer."

"Not when you eat 'em like you do."

"It could be my thing. I'm the one who's always eating something."

Cal shook his head. "That's the worst thing. Things need to be...good."

"But—"

"Look, I've worked for this guy before," Cal said. "If you make him look bad, he's not going to say anything, but he might just kill you the second we're all done here. If  _ you  _ want to have a shootout with a rustin' Lurcher, be my guest—"

Perr gulped, but she shoved the apple back into the pocket of her coat. Her stomach growled. Was that dignified?

She looked over the crowd of hostages, where Riza was wrestling something away from a middle-aged woman in a jacket and trousers that didn't look quite as clean as those surrounding her. The woman's strong, squarish features were frightened and vulnerable-looking, eyes flicking back and forth rapidly.

Another flip in Perr's stomach. The woman didn't give her the mental image of someone rich, a tourist slumming it out in the Roughs as some sort of social experiment. Her outfit was dusty, her dark hair shoved into a short tail instead of pinned or styled. She looked like someone who had been saving up, maybe to go visit someone, and had picked the wrong place at the wrong time.

There were plenty of guns on the hostages. She lowered hers. She wasn't a bad draw, if anyone tried anything she could probably shoot them before they managed it.

The dusty woman was still wrestling with Riza for whatever it was she had. Perr's nervousness built, and didn't go anywhere as Riza swung a pewter-enhanced fist at her head. The woman abruptly stopped struggling and dropped to the ground, blood leaking from her head.

People gasped, and one of them was Perr. Nervousness settled into horror. This was real now.

Riza shook her hand out with a chuckle.

"Shame," Dent said, as casually as if he were discussing an unseasonable rainstorm. The ingot of metal Riza had taken floated into his hand. "Stupid games, stupid prizes." He rolled his eyes. "Still. I hope that gets the point across."

"Yep," said the dead body on the floor.

Oh, Harmony's balls.

Nobody moved as the body picked itself— picked herself up. Blood sheeted down the side of her head, but she didn't seem to notice. "So. That's assault during armed robbery. With intent to murder, I think, judging by how hard you hit me. Not that it really matters, given...Dent. Hi." She didn't sound nearly worried enough for being surrounded by six people with guns, two of them Allomancers and one of them having just punched her in the head hard enough to knock her to the ground. "Dented Iron, they call you? Clever. Wanted for five counts of armed robbery, three counts of murder, and too many to count of being a pain in the asses of everyone trying to live out here. I'd say I'm bringing you in, but...you're probably not going to give me a chance, are you?"

Of course. The dust, the poorly-maintained outfit. Perr should have figured that one out. She was a lawman. A rusting stupid one, but a lawman all the same.

"You think this is a good idea?" Dent drawled. His voice filled itself out with the extra edge of menace, turning from wispy to sepulchral. "You're outnumbered, and unless you've got an aluminum gun on you somewhere, you're unarmed."

"Nah. No aluminum gun," the woman said.

Then a bullet went through Dent's eye.

A spray of red arced out behind his head, and he dropped like a marionette with cut strings.

"One aluminum bullet, though," she added. "Anyone else want to dance? Last chance to get out, and I promise I'll forget your face."

Perr gulped. Cal was between her and the door, crossbow pointed at the woman, and he wasn't moving. Nobody was.

The woman's eyes flicked back and forth, and a smile curved across her face. "Sounds good to me."

Riza was the fastest to move, of course. She swung her fist at the woman, faster and stronger than any normal human could have. But the woman shifted, catching the punch and moving smoothly with it, and as one of the other men raised his gun and fired, it was Riza who flinched, not the woman.

She kicked Riza in the chest, and Perr could  _ hear  _ something crack as Riza took a step back to readjust, pewter keeping her from being thrown completely.

Perr should have done something. But she wasn't a good enough shot to guarantee not hitting Riza again, and...she couldn't just shoot a hostage, right? She wasn't going to do that.

The man who had shot Riza— was his name Ebli or something?— fired again, but he must have missed because the woman didn't even twitch. Another Allomancer? Feruchemist? Twinborn? The woman didn't shoot him. She shot the man next to him, who had halfway finished aiming his crossbow before he collapsed to the ground.

Riza came for her again, and she slid to one side, putting Riza between herself and Ebli. Riza took a second bullet in the back.

The woman wasn't moving  _ faster  _ than Riza. There was no possibility of that, not with Riza burning pewter. But she moved over shorter distances, and each movement was to exactly where she had to be to keep herself from being a target.

She shot Ebli under Riza's arm.

Perr's heart leapt up into her throat. She hadn't even seen the woman drawing the gun, and she couldn't see it now. Where had it been, that she'd hidden it from sight  _ and  _ Allomancy?

Riza had her hands on her pistol, and the woman's hand flashed out, catching the gun by the barrel. She twisted it, breaking fingers, and then slammed her forehead into Riza's. Riza staggered, the woman plucked the gun free of her hand, planted it against Riza's chest, and pulled the trigger.

Riza collapsed amidst shrieks from the hostages. The woman leveled the gun at her prone form.

"Hey," came a voice from Perr's right. She and the woman both turned to see Cal, holding one of the hostages in a vice grip. His crossbow was pointed at her neck. "Drop the weapon."

The lawman blinked twice. But she dropped the weapon, raising her hands. Riza was crawling away, the hole in her chest knitting itself back together with horrific lethargy.

"Alright," Cal said, coldly. "You want her to live?"

The lawman nodded. Her eyes were wide.

They'd been wide like that before she'd gone on her rampage, Perr realized.

She opened her mouth to say something, then glanced again at Cal, holding his crossbow to the neck of a defenseless woman, not the slightest tremble in his motions.

Perr closed her mouth.

"Alright," said Cal again, still utterly calm. "Then the first thing you'll do—"

A shot rang out, and Cal dropped, a hole in his neck. The hostage screamed, scrambling away and nearly colliding with Perr, because for some reason she was running  _ away  _ from the door. Everyone was in motion, suddenly, rich idiots tripping over each other in their rush for the door.

Perr stumbled to one side, got an idea, and collapsed to the floor as though she'd been struck. This had been a really,  _ really  _ bad plan all around.

The lawman was advancing on Riza, who had pulled herself up into a sitting position and drawn another pistol.

Riza fired. The lawman didn't move.

That shot hadn't missed. There had been no reason for it to miss. It had been a shot made at ten paces, by a woman operating on pewter-enhanced abilities and no conscience at all.

Everything clicked into place for Perr, from how the lawman had survived being punched in the head to where she'd been hiding the gun, and she realized just how  _ much  _ of a bad idea it had been to take this job.

Riza, who hadn't gotten it, fired again. This time, Perr could see where the bullet landed, where it didn't come out the other side, and where the Faceless Immortal hadn't been injured.

Perr had never been religious. She'd been raised vaguely Pathian, but she didn't even own an earring, and she hadn't borrowed one for daily prayer in over a year now.

Still, it was never too late to start.

Another bullet continued doing nothing. The lawman knelt down in front of Riza.

"Stop doing that," she said.

Riza snorted, placed her gun up to the lawman's forehead, and fired.

There was a sound of metal striking metal.

"Yeah, figured," said the Faceless Immortal, and did the same to Riza.

She didn't heal from that.

Perr, who had been praying to Harmony for the last minute, squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath. She wished she were a Gasper or something like that; hyperventilation came fairly easily to her. Still, within the bounds of what she'd been given, she did the best possible imitation of a corpse.

"I know you're alive," the Faceless Immortal said.

_ Damn you, Harmony. _

"It's not a very good imitation," the Faceless Immortal said. "You want to relax, for one. Corpses don't go rigid for a little while after death, and it's  _ rigid,  _ not tense. Very different." Her voice was getting louder as she approached, but Perr couldn't hear footsteps. "But there were no shots that could have hit you. I can tell because they all hit  _ me. _ "

Perr kept her eyes closed, now because she didn't want to see what was going to happen to her. If she hadn't been blind-to-Faceless with one of Harmony's personal agents, she'd have converted to Survivorism on the spot, because she found that when you were about to die, that was the only thing worth praying for.

Hands found her collar, and she was hauled into the air. Her eyes fluttered open instinctively, and she stared into the eyes of a Faceless Immortal.

The creature looked so normal. Brown skin a little lighter than Perr's own, intelligent-looking eyes, features that weren't instantly enthralling but made for a certain appeal. Perr swallowed hard as the Faceless Immortal stared into her and pronounced what would most certainly be the last words she'd ever hear.

"...Hm. I think I'm depressed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Yes, Paalm is very good at a variety of things. She's 1100 years old and has been doing Task nonstop for most of that time, it seems.  
> -But I doubt the Lord Ruler had a mental health program.  
> -Meet Perr! Maybe she'll be important later. Who knows?
> 
> Will update extremely sporadically.


	2. I'm Not Happy Without Wax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does the title of the chapter feel reminiscent of something?

The girl stared at her, eyes wide with terror, the rest of her expression hidden behind a cloth mask. Her skin was brown, unlined. Young.

Paalm felt vaguely bored, and slightly sick.

She was sore. Being shot repeatedly, even if you were immortal and mostly invulnerable, was unpleasant. She needed to replenish the injured tissue, which meant that she needed food. The people who had just been trying to kill her seemed like a very reasonable smorgasbord.

The girl was hyperventilating. Where Paalm had her collar, she could feel the life in her. The girl swallowed.

"Hm. I think I'm depressed," Paalm said.

She wasn't sure why she'd said it, aside from the fact that it was true. Too much time without both spikes in had left her with a number of tics, she'd learned, thinking out loud by far the least of them.

"O-oh?" asked the girl.

Paalm stared at her. Stringy, but there was some meat. Not much.

Then she dropped the girl, grabbed Dent's body, slung it over her shoulder, and trudged away, leaving the carnage in the little dance hall to mummify.

"H-hey, wait!" called the girl. Paalm stopped at the doorway, turning her head around without adjusting the rest of her body.

The girl gulped. She had an apple, which she was chewing on less like food and more like a toy for anxious children.

"You're not going to kill me?" the girl asked. Her voice was wavery, nervous, and carried a Terris accent more than a Rougher accent. But her clothes were in effortless Rougher style, trousers and a coat that looked like someone had crudely resized a duster to stop at midthigh, and they were the only part of her that she seemed to wear comfortably. Raised in the Terris village until she was old enough to have memories of it, then brought out to the Roughs. And then abandoned, willingly or otherwise, because otherwise she wouldn't be here.

"You never fired," Paalm noted. "You lowered your gun, to avoid pointing it at anyone being taken hostage. Killing you would qualify as murder, which I avoid."

The girl looked doubtfully at the scattered bodies.

"It's different," Paalm said.

"How?"

Paalm frowned. "...They...started it."

"Doesn't seem like it makes much of a difference, if you can't be killed," the girl said.

"Do you _want_ me to kill you?" Paalm asked.

"...No!"

"Right," Paalm said. "See all that jewelry? Have fun being rich. I hear it's a blast."

Paalm left.

She walked out of the little office building and out into the Roughs. It was a little past noon, now, the sun sweltering down— Paalm adjusted some heat receptors and pores, and made her ears a little larger for better heat exchange. The dust swirled in the faint, hot breeze— Paalm slid a nictating membrane over her eyes.

The streets were empty. Nothing moved faster than rich idiots glad to be alive, apparently. Paalm wished she had a proper Roughs hat right now, to pull down over her eyes.

This was the part where she walked off into the sunset, she supposed. When she'd been creating Lessie, she'd read over a few of the pulp novels— that was what _happened_ at the end of the story. But it wasn't sunset, and whichever way she walked, there was really only more of the same.

And this was a crappy ending.

After a few weeks of Elendel, she'd concluded that it was pointless and boring and irritating, and she'd come back out to the Roughs to live half of the only life she'd ever enjoyed.

With that theory dead in the tumbleweeds, there was only really one other option, wasn't there?

Her newly sharpened ears picked up on the sounds of footsteps behind her. She turned around to find the girl running after her, with the sack of jewelry in one hand, and in the other—

"Your apple was green earlier, wasn't it?"

"Different apple," the girl said, breathlessly. "Where you headed?"

"Going to turn in this guy's body." Though...why, really? It wasn't as if Paalm needed money. The problem with realizing everything you'd been doing was pointless was the sudden surfeit of free time, it seemed. "Or maybe not."

"Oh," said the girl. "And then?"

Paalm carried the body into an alleyway, the girl pattering along behind her. "Well, now I'm going to eat him."

"Oh."

She'd assumed that the girl would run. It seemed like a very reasonable assumption. Eighty percent at least. But as she unhinged her jaw to swallow Dent, there was a squeak of fright.

Paalm sighed and turned back to the girl, making her face human again. "This is the part you want to leave for."

"See, actually, I was thinking that I should probably stick with you," the girl said. "Just on account of you're pretty good at the whole gunfighting thing, and you can't die, and you said you don't wanna murder no one. Which, hey, me neither!"

Paalm stared at her. "...Do you have a name?"

"I'm Perr," said Perr.

Paalm adjusted her voice slightly, to the one she'd used that time she'd posed as a teacher. That had been fun. Should she get a job as a teacher? The only thing she knew how to teach was the Lord Ruler's version of history, which was somewhat obsolete now. "Well, Perr, I'm going to eat this man, and I don't think someone your...age? Should be watching." That was probably true. Paalm was good at being a person.

"I'm an adult," Perr said indignantly.

"No you're not," Paalm said.

"I'm...seventeen," Perr mumbled. "Practically an adult."

"I'm over a thousand years old," Paalm said, inflectionless. "I've watched kingdoms fall. I watched an _empire_ fall. In the final days of the old world, I saw the skies bleed, the fields burn as the Ashmounts perished. I saw the first flowers and the first colors, a world born anew, and I sobbed on the cliffs in the first ocean breeze anyone alive today had ever felt. I saw armies on a scale that this gelded new world could never understand, and I shattered them under my heel when I had to. I stalked the mists in the night, and I dueled Mistborn in an era that made the Age of Gods look like the squabbles of children in the sandbox. I have suffered on a scale no human could comprehend, I have known joy that would move the mountains themselves to tears— so can you please trust me when I say that you'll probably be traumatized if I eat someone in front of you, and go do something else with your day?"

"Uh, yeah," said Perr, and proceeded to stay exactly where she was. "Except, I'm probably kinda already traumatized, because you shot several people in front of me, and I don't have anywhere else to go, exactly?"

"...Hell," said Paalm.

Then she ate Dent.

Eating people wasn't _hard,_ but it wasn't quick. Paalm's jaw unhinged, and her flesh spooled itself out like a lion's tongue, ribbons of muscle licking Dent's bones clean as she drew the meat into herself. There were simpler ways, but there was enough dust that Paalm didn't really want to get naked right now. She could feel her body incorporating the consumed flesh, winding it back into the spaces where she'd been shot, or where she'd fallen harder than human knees supported, or just generally where she'd accumulated bruises.

In times like these, Paalm often found herself wondering what the Lord Ruler had had on his mind, when he'd created the kandra.

She looked back at where Perr had been, expecting to find herself alone in the alleyway. Perr stood there, looking slightly terrified, apple still in her mouth. There was a small crunch, and the sound of chewing.

"...That was pretty cool," Perr said.

Paalm sighed. "There's nothing I can do to stop you following me around, is there?"

Perr held out the bag of jewelry. "Not now I'm rich."

There were no witnesses here. Very likely nobody to miss Perr if she vanished.

But Perr was lonely, clearly. Which was fair, given that Paalm herself was pretty lonely. And Perr also had the distinction of being the first person Paalm had met who didn't know what she'd done, and that was...

"Great," Paalm muttered. "Come on, then. We're going to the train station."

"You never actually said where we were going," Perr asked. "Train station doesn't actually say that much—"

Paalm took a deep breath, and focused on the one bright spark left to her. Where honestly, she'd always sort of known she was going to end up again.

"I know a guy who lives in Elendel."

——

Paalm was fast growing to dislike train stations.

She was surrounded by people. Rich, poor, young, old, all of them so eager to be somewhere without any understanding of where they _were._ They stood amidst one of the great technological marvels of Harmony's new world, a monument to progress and growth, and all they could do was move as fast as they could to escape. Even without the pounding of the waterfall, the crowd would have been deafening.

Which would have been fine if they hadn't been shoving Paalm along in their tide. She caught an elbow in the ribs as someone rushed by her— which probably hurt the unfortunate traveler more than it did her, but it was the principle of the thing. Paalm ducked out of the way of the rush, pressing herself and her suitcase up against a column.

She didn't have time to change out bones, and anyway she didn't have any other True Bodies, and wearing human bones would leave her unacceptably vulnerable. But worrying about bones was something other kandra did. Paalm adjusted some fat distribution, tightened some of the muscle in her shoulders, and by the time Perr emerged from the crowd, her bag slung over one shoulder and a carrot held in her mouth, he slouched against the column, hat over his eyes and a cigar held loosely in his fingers.

Paalm hadn't expected Perr to actually come with him. But she had, and now Paalm had a...sidekick? Ward? Annoyance?

Perr stared at him.

"What?" Paalm asked.

"You're a man now."

"I'm no different than I was twenty seconds ago," Paalm said. "My appearance is an affectation for the benefit of observers. We've been over this" He turned a segment of one finger transparent. Perr made a face. "We'll draw less attention than we would as two women traveling together. If anyone asks, I'm your uncle Pelem."

Perr tilted her head. "But you're a woman? Underneath, I mean? Like, are you a guy who looks like a girl sometimes, or a girl who looks like a guy sometimes?"

Paalm shrugged. "I'm what I need to be."

Perr looked Paalm up and down. "I think you looked better before."

"I look approximately the same. You just don't like men."

"Wh— I don't—" Perr frowned, and took a thoughtful bite of her carrot. "Huh. What are you, Nicci Sauvage?"

"Who?"

Perr blinked, and her face split into a wide grin. "Nicelle Sauvage, paranatural detective! She's a noblewoman—"

"The nobility of the Basin are mostly hyenas," Paalm noted.

"...Well, _yeah,_ but this one's cool! She's a Leecher, and she knows Baz-Kor and ballet, and when she looks at you, she can figure out everything you ever did in your life, and she'll tell you. And you did that trick with knowing I hadn't shot nobody, and you figured out I don't like men before I did— don't you read the broadsheets? _The New Ascendancy_ puts out a new chapter every Sunday, and I can usually get a free paper 'cause the Survivorists are all in church and it takes them til noon to go looking."

"...It sounds very much as though either her or her stories are made up," Paalm said.

"Maybe, but it doesn't make 'em less _fun,_ " Perr protested. "Anyway, I got you a carrot too."

"I eat dead flesh," Paalm said. "Usually of people. Sometimes of cows, or goats. Sheep have too much wool and are disgusting. I don't eat carrots."

"Yeah, which is what I remembered after I got the carrot, so I ate it on the way back."

"Pragmatic of you," Paalm said flatly.

"That's me," Perr agreed. "Eyes on the prize."

The train wasn't long in arriving, and Paalm handed off his suitcase with no small amount of trepidation. Not that he was the only one carrying something that might arouse suspicions— the woman who'd been ahead of him was smuggling what smelled like tobacco, for one— but he had very few things that he could call his, and the thought of losing any of them bothered him, even if the really important ones— his and Perr's guns for instance— he'd just wedged into his ribcage.

That was why he'd shoved a lot of his stuff into Perr's bag as well, which the younger girl kept with her with a suspicious glance at the valet.

"Relax," Paalm whispered. "He's a pickpocket, not a luggage thief."

"Wh—" Perr's hands went to the pockets of her coat. "Harmony's shaft!" Paalm repressed a giggle. He wondered, occasionally, what kandra had spread _that_ particular family of blasphemies around the Basin. "He got my carrot!"

Paalm glanced back at the valet, who was looking deeply crestfallen. "Who knows? Maybe it will put him off the habit for a while." He returned his attention to Perr— "...When did you get that roll?"

Perr took a bite of the roll. "Picked it up on the way to the station. Never pass up an opportunity to get a hold of food, that's my motto."

"If you get too much food, it'll go rotten before you can finish it," Paalm pointed out.

"Ain't been a problem yet."

The two of them found their seats— the train wasn't one with closed-door cars, at least not for what Paalm had been willing to pay. He settled into the seat in the aisle, leaving Perr to stare out the window— if something happened, it would be better if he was able to act immediately.

The train rumbled into motion. Paalm leaned back against the chair, enhancing a few of his nerves to feel it better.

"I've been on a train before," Perr was saying. "I was real little, though. Don't remember much of it, 'cept that I think I started crying 'cause I wanted to go back home, and my folks said we weren't safe there. Couldn't tell you why or where we were going from."

"Where _are_ your parents?" Paalm asked. "I can only assume they're dead, but—" he trailed off at the look on Perr's face. "Ah, rusts. Sorry, Perr, I didn't mean—"

"S'okay," Perr mumbled. "Not like I really remember 'em. Got raised by whoever I could get work from more'n anything."

She went silent, back to staring out of the window. Paalm was left to reflect on the fact that he'd played counselor for people of all walks of life, learned every trick one could learn to manipulate the psyche of allies and foes alike, and yet when he was himself, a simple conversation with a lonely kid was out of his depth.

Neither of them talked again for hours. Perr kept looking around at Paalm, then seeming to remember that she was upset and going back to staring out the window. Paalm, meanwhile, was just as happy to daydream.

The rail was getting smoother, as they got closer to Elendel, the view changing from the dry dust of the Roughs and the short grasses of the outer Basin to the tall trees and lush fields of the city outskirts. Even in the twilight, it was an indelible sight.

Unfortunately.

Perr, forgetting her discomfort, whipped her head between Paalm and the window. "Trees! Holy Harmony, _look!_ "

"Yeah."

"I don't think I've _ever_ seen a tree that tall," Perr breathed. "The acacias never get that big— is the city always like this?"

Paalm leaned over Perr's shoulder to look himself. "You don't think it's a bit excessive?"

"There's _fruit_ on that tree, I'm pretty sure!" Perr said. "Maybe you're just a cynic."

"In my defense, I've had practice," Paalm said, and he couldn't keep a little grin off his face. He could sort of see why Wax had picked up Wayne, now. "Something that you should understand is that no matter the pretty face the city puts on, it's a cesspit of corruption. The nobles of the city dredge the outlying territories for every last clip, and take more in bribes to carry through their votes. Workers languish in poverty, while the idle rich live in mansions that no one family could fill if they did nothing but screw like rabbits. The city— all of the Basin, but _especially_ Elendel— is locked in a stasis like a sparrow in the grasp of a falcon, with no hope of escape nor survival. Existence— thriving, fulfillment, the things that _matter_ — these are eked out in spite of its bounty, not because of them."

Perr stared at him. "...The last job I worked, all of my colleagues got shot, and one of them got eaten."

"That's normal risk. This is totally different."

"You said you had a bed."

"I have a...place." Not that he'd been there in forever, but the lease was in his name, for all that meant for a kandra. "It's small, but there's a bed in it. You can have it, I don't really...need it."

"Because you're made of unkillable goo."

"Because I'm made of unkillable goo."

"Isn't this guy you're pining over after a noble?" Perr asked. "What makes him different?"

Paalm sputtered, which he hadn't done in seven hundred years. "I'm not _pining,_ first of all, and Wax isn't a noble. He's a lawman at heart— who happens to be of noble descent. He's...better than they are. He's trying to make a difference in the world."

"Right," said Perr, a bit skeptically. "Only you kind of seem like you're pining, on account of you don't think anything will ever make you happy except this guy, and—"

"Perr," said Paalm. "I am over a thousand years old—"

"Are you gonna give me that speech again?"

"I'm over a thousand years old, which means I know what I'm doing," Paalm said.

"Is that why you're still a fellow?" Perr asked. "Or does he like fellows?"

"...I'll change once we're back at the house," Paalm said. Not that he was entirely sure Wax _didn't_ like men— there had been a few moments, when they'd been chasing certain outlaws— he caught the expression on Perr's face. "Which _doesn't_ mean I'm pining. It's only that he knew me best as a woman, and given that he already thinks I'm dead, I feel it's best to minimize the number of surprises he receives in one day."

"...And you're one hundred percent sure that's gonna go over, huh?" Perr asked.

Paalm opened his mouth to reply, when an odd sound filtered through the train car. "Perr, do you hear a pianoforte?"

Perr furrowed her eyebrows. "Nah. How'd you even get one onto a train?"

_Lord Ruler._

There had been other consequences to Paalm's time spent without his spikes. In moments of high emotion— had this been that? He had an unfortunate tendency to hear music.

And worse—

" _There are loose ends_ _  
_ _I should explain_ _  
_ _Perhaps a couple hundred_ _  
_ _And you'll have questions too_ _  
_ _A lot of questions_ _  
_ _Really a lot_ _  
_ _A thousand years of questions, more or less_

 _But when no mysteries_ _  
_ _Remain_ _  
_ _And there's nothing left to wonder_ _  
_ _From those sixteen years of you_ _  
_ _And then the thousand years before_ _  
_ _There's a lot of things the two of us could reassess_

 _But then I'll tell you how I've missed you_ _  
_ _How I wear this face, for the time we shared_ _  
_ _If Harmony could have really seen us_ _  
_ _We'd have his blessing_ _  
_ _And there would be nothing more between us…_

 _If you remember our romance_ _  
_ _Though time has passed, and we are older_ _  
_ _If you give us another chance_ _  
_ _I won't hold back, this time I'll be bolder_

 _Because you're all I have to hold_ _  
_ _There's nothing else I have to live for_ _  
_ _That's fairly normal, I'm told_ _  
_ _Though there's plenty to forgive for_

 _Yes, you shot me twice_ _  
_ _And yes, I killed your priest, your mayor, and more_ _  
_ _And you thought I was dead_ _  
_ _But we can roll the dice_ _  
_ _And forge ahead_ _  
_ _That's all I ask for_

 _And then I'll tell you how I've missed you_ _  
_ _Because you were all that made me happy,_ _  
_ _so please don't demean us_ __  
_Because I'm alive now_   
So that means there's nothing more between us..."

Paalm blinked at Perr. Perr blinked back.

The sun was roughly where it had been in the sky, so his little interlude hadn't taken _too_ long, presumably.

"Oh," said Perr, and took a bite out of her croissant.

Paalm was _fairly_ certain that he hadn't just sung at Perr. It seemed unlikely that Perr would be sitting as calmly as she was, with only slightly wide eyes to indicate whatever Paalm _had_ said.

"So that explains...that," Paalm said, whatever _that_ was. "It'll be fine."

The train was rolling into the station, and Paalm stood up. As it jerked to a halt, Paalm took a few steps across the floor and stayed standing. He looked back, and saw Perr awkwardly splayed over the chairs where she'd tried to do the same and fallen.

"Well, don't just sit around," Paalm drawled. "We've got places to be."

Perr hopped to her feet with what Paalm supposed was the resilience of youth or something like that. "So, did you say you killed a _priest—_ "

"Places to be, Perr."

—-

"Are you really sure we needed this much bread?" Paalm asked, setting a bag of groceries down on the counter by the sink.

Paalm's place wasn't really big enough for two people, just a miniature kitchen, a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower; and a bedroom devoid of anything but a futon that felt slightly lacking. Frankly, it wasn't big enough for _one_ person, it was only where she went at the end of the day, and not even with great frequency.

Shortly after the Catacendre, Paalm had been informed that Harmony expected her to find a place to live, because it was completely unreasonable that one of his Hands be essentially a murderous drifter. Paalm, not wanting to take a home that could be used by a human that actually needed it, had found a tenement at the edge of the Third Octant. Now that she was looking at actually trying to live here, though, she was finding herself much less in sympathy with humanity as a species.

They'd passed by Eastbridge on the way from the station. Another good reason to try and move out soon.

"Can't have too much bread!" Perr called from the bedroom. "Just put it in the icebox!"

"The…" Paalm scowled. "I have an icebox?" She found something that _probably_ wasn't just a large cube on her floor, and opened it. "Well, would you look at that."

Perr came out of the bedroom, moving faster than felt reasonable for anyone not in a hurry, holding a biscuit she'd liberated from the groceries. "There's nothing in here at _all._ Did you ever actually live here?"

"Not really," Paalm admitted. "We can get some decorations, I suppose."

" _Please._ And what's that sm—" Perr trailed off, swallowing hard, and then doing something that looked like the opposite of swallowing.

"Don't throw up on my floor."

Perr gagged again. "Your icebox— is full of—"

"I guess I did live here for a bit," Paalm said. "Don't throw up on my floor!"

"Couldn't make it any filthier!"

"I'll clean it, it's fine." Paalm scoured the meat out of the icebox with a quick sweep of a few dozen tongues, turning several pounds of tissue into hepatic matter. Flavorful, if a bit sharp.

"Right awful, that is," Perr mumbled, like a mantra more than actual communication. "Right awful…"

"All this food's for you, so do whatever you want to do with it," Paalm said briskly. "Get yourself as settled in or otherwise as you like, but try not to wander too far and lock the door if you do go out. Hot water might be iffy, but it's better than they have in the Roughs."

"Right awful," Perr said again.

She wasn't broken, so Paalm decided it was an issue of limited importance. "I'll be back in…" She checked her pocketwatch, which turned out to be dead since she hadn't wound it since Lessie had died. "Few hours? Don't wait up if you get tired."

"Uh-huh," Perr mumbled. She retreated out of the kitchen and back to the bedroom.

Paalm almost walked out the door, then stopped.

She went into the bathroom, checking herself in the mirror.

What should she look like, if she was going to do this? Lessie was dead, but Wax had loved that face. Was that...okay?

Paalm adjusted things— the shades of her skin, the blood that pulsed under her face, the prominence of the bones in her cheeks, the lines in her forehead, the cartilage making up her nose—

She was tweaking, and she was doing it with a mind to features instead of face. A mistake she hadn't made in almost a millennium.

_You're overthinking this, Paalm._

She braced herself against the sink as she shifted her features back towards what they had been. That was the right move here. Not Lessie, but close. Enough to remind Wax of her, not enough to be her really, even if all Paalm really wanted right now was to be Lessie again, back at his side.

Which was impossible, because Lessie was dead and buried. But this would be close.

At some point, maybe instinctively, she'd started sweating. She dehydrated her skin, took a deep breath, and got ready—

"There are _bones_ in your suitcase!"

——

Twenty minutes later, after Perr had been calmed down and convinced that she wasn't next on the menu, Paalm was on her way to the Fourth Octant.

The walk wasn't quiet or isolated or reflective, but Paalm felt as though she could reflect all the same. Something about the city meant that even as dozens or hundreds shared the streets with you, everyone moved in their own private bubbles.

Paalm could feel the old impulses bubble up, as she passed people by. These were sheep, moving placidly in their pens. A word, whispered to a young man at the right moment about what the girl on his arm did when he wasn't looking, would leave him a wreck and her a corpse. A push at the right time could send someone under a horse's hooves and carriage wheels. So much of this city was precarious, peace born of nothing more than a gossamer-thin honor system. You'd never have seen that in the Final Empire.

...Paalm was going somewhere, though, for the first time that she could remember.

And the same as she was, everyone else was. People had goals, plans, interests, independent of the machinery of the city.

Lives.

You wouldn't see much of that in the Final Empire, either, Paalm supposed.

There was a beggar on the sidewalk, holding out a cup for alms. Paalm passed by him, close enough to obscure what she was doing from anyone watching, and passed a gold earring into the cup.

Paalm had been given a chance. He deserved one too, she decided.

She didn't encounter anything else to move her as she walked. It was about an hour before she reached her destination.

It hadn't been hard to find, since she'd visited it once a day before trying to return to the Roughs.

Mansions were...strange. Especially now, in Harmony's new world. The old manors of the Lord Ruler's nobility had been unapologetic, huge structures with almost their own gravity to them. The Ladrian mansion tucked itself away in the neighborhood, as if it was ashamed to be a house bigger than every other house on the block.

No less ostentatious for it, of course.

The gate, predictably, was guarded. But there was a fence, not a wall, so Paalm stepped through it, bones sliding around inside her as she slipped through. She had to disgorge her skull completely, tossing it over the fence onto the grounds and resorbing it on the other side.

She walked up to the door. It was dark, but there were still streetlights lit, and it wasn't yet so dark that the inhabitants of the house were likely to be asleep.

Knocking on the door of a large house was awkward. You never really knew who would answer. But Paalm was fairly certain that Wax wasn't yet so domesticated that he'd ask someone else to get it.

She sharpened her ears, impatient. There were footsteps coming down stairs, getting closer to the door. She recognized the cadence of steps, though they'd gotten slower, a new hitch in the movement. Her breathing quickened without her will behind it.

The door opened.

Wax stood there, an aged servant hovering behind him. He was off-center from the door, like he generally was, in case someone opened up shooting. He was dressed, but casually, no coat or hat, cravat undone but not yet removed, cuffs gone to show his metalminds. His hair was grayer than it had been, and Paalm had to admit that she might be partially responsible for that. One hand was behind his back, and it most certainly held a pistol.

Paalm had had a number of plans for what to say. She'd had plans for opening the door to find someone else entirely, whether Wayne or the young woman he'd intended to marry or one of his other tagalongs. She'd had plans for if he'd opened the door minus any combination of his usual outfit, with any unusual additions, or if the door had instead been opened by TenSoon, who had predicted Paalm's entire course of action through the benefit of experience.

She had nothing planned for the look on Wax's face, utter shock bleeding into horror.

"...Hi," she said finally, faintly pathetically.

Wax stood there, still as a statue.

"It's...it's me," Paalm said. ""I'm alive. Both spikes. My mind is back." She should have had something better to say. She was over a thousand years old, and she hadn't made it that far by sputtering her way through small talk like a lovestruck teenager.

Wax didn't move a muscle.

"...Mister Cravat?" Paalm tried.

"It's...really you, then?" Wax asked. "You're alive."

"Your dedu—"

Wax's hand snapped out from behind his back, gun flashing towards Paalm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PAALM: I was  
> Working hard at a Roughs Town job  
> Making dough, but it made me blue  
> One day, I was crying a lot  
> And so I decided to move to  
> Elendel, inside the Basin  
> Brand-new pals and new career  
> It happens to be where Wax lives  
> But that's not why I'm here!  
> TRELL: She's the crazy ex-girlfriend!  
> PAALM: What? No, I'm not!  
> WAYNE: She's the crazy ex-girlfriend!  
> PAALM: That's a sexist term!  
> MELAAN: She's the crazy ex-girlfriend  
> PAALM: Can you guys just stop singing for just a second?  
> MARASI: She's so broken inside...  
> PAALM: The situation's a lot more nuanced than that!  
> HARMONY: C-R-A-Z-Y  
> PAALM: Okay, we get it.  
> ALL: Crazy ex-girlfriend!
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bmo5rOokJjnQmDm6g0MP8kZsVqc8hnAg/preview?usp=sharing
> 
> On the loud side. apologies for sound quality issues
> 
> NOTES:  
> -Paalm's opinions of gender and society and frankly most things do not reflect those of the author, and will be explored in more depth.  
> -Perr's still here  
> -"Paalm's 1100 years old and she really couldn't figure out a better way to reintroduce herself to the guy she traumatized twice?" that's correct


	3. I Think Wax Is Upset

Wax planted the gun in the center of Paalm's chest, finger on the trigger.

For just a moment, he hesitated. His stare, so intense usually, was vulnerable. His chest fell, breath escaping.

Paalm remembered why she loved him. It wasn't a question of physical appearance— appearance was meaningless. It was those little moments when the steel bent, when Wax the lawman burned away to show Wax the man. The man who'd loved her for sixteen years and then after she'd died, the man who had picked up the strays, her and Wayne and the rest of his coterie. Someone who changed things, who saw what needed to be done, rolled up his sleeves, and  _ did it. _

There was also a gun pointed at her. Not that it would harm her, but being shot point-blank hurt and would damage her bones. Almost instinctively, she pulled the gun free of his hand.

Which, she realized instants later, had been an error.

The steelpush hit her like a gun of its own, the frame of the pistol shoving her backwards and, because Wax was taller than she was and stood above her on the threshold,  _ down. _ He'd tapped iron, and as she hit the ground, she kept going, digging a furrow into the yard.

She went to move, and the Push held her down. She could feel bones crumpling, her sternum slowly bending inwards. She shoved at the gun, and found it almost inert, but winding more muscle into her arms, she was able to pull it to one side.

The Push vanished, and Paalm sat up.

Her back had been shredded from head to waist where she'd been dragged along the ground, bits of abraded tissue left in a wake behind her. If she'd been human, she would have been— well, dead, probably, but at least gasping for breath and probably immobilized by pain.

The fact that she wasn't, the fact that she could survive the hit she'd just taken little the worse for wear beyond her appearance, that left her less of anything that wasn't Paalm the thousand-year-old kandra, who wasn't really anyone at all. As the pain faded away into a clinical awareness rather than an incapacitating manacle, it left her unable to fake anything, feel anything.

There were fabric scraps as well. Her duster and shirt, the last remnants of Lessie, had just been obliterated. She'd lost her shoes, somehow, though that was a fairly minor problem.

She wasn't sure she deserved to feel. She adjusted her eyes for better nightsight and to clear up the double vision.

"This is a joke," Wax said, voice toneless and matter-of-fact, the way it always was when he had a purpose. "And not a very good one."

"Lord Ladrian?" wheezed the servant, limping towards the door. One of Paalm's ears was a smear in the dirt in her wake, but the other worked quite well. Something was off about his voice. "Is that her, sir? Bleeder?" Paalm winced.

"Not now," Wax said. He pulled a coin from his belt, holding it out towards Paalm. "I can't do this. Not again." His voice hitched, and his hand wavered.

Paalm coughed out a mouthful of dirt, picking herself up. "There isn't any  _ this,  _ Wax, I'm—"

"I know that 'a'!" said the servant, in a voice entirely unlike the voice he'd had before. "That  _ is  _ her!"

Oh.

Wayne shot forward, his limp turning out to be one of his dueling canes concealed down his trouser leg, the other the actual cane he'd been holding.

The rusted 'a's. That had been a real low point.

Three steps from Paalm, he flickered, and suddenly his servant's jacket was drifting through the air between them. Paalm snatched it away, and Wayne stepped out in the other direction, swinging his cane into the back of her knee.

Turning off pain as a kandra wasn't automatic or absolute. It was more like being struck with heavy padding between you and the impact, and Paalm still felt it as her leg gave way under her.

She caught the swing of the other cane on her arms. That was easy enough.

"Rustin' impolite of you to show up like that, put Wax in a state, 'specially when he was just about to bet me his new chandelier," Wayne said. "Me bein' so generic an' all, I guess I'll just have to help out."

Paalm  _ liked  _ Wayne. She'd had a soft spot for the boy out in the Roughs, and he'd been the one to stick by Wax through everything he'd been through— everything, she had to admit, that she'd put him through. His presence here, at the moment, was still thoroughly inconvenient.

Paalm shifted her weight and lashed out with the leg that Wayne had just knocked from under her, sweeping him off of his feet. A flicker, and he was standing straight again, his canes swinging at her and knocking her to the ground again.

"'Sides," he said. "Still a bit sore over the bump on the head you gave me."

He'd gotten better at using his Allomancy, apparently.

She flipped herself to her feet instantly, catching another two strokes of the canes on her arms, and this time keeping them in place as the muscles of her arms flexed and contorted to hold on.

"Uh," said Wayne. "Don't suppose we could start over, go over some rules about shapeshiftin' an' its place in a fight, could we?"

Paalm yanked the canes out of his hands, tossing them aside as she stepped in close, too close for Wayne to create a bubble that caught the canes and not her. Her hands reached up towards his neck. The best way to kill a Bloodmaker was strangulation, no amount of healing would do a thing about suffocation—

She didn't want to kill him. Right. She caught his collar instead, flipped him over her shoulder—

And the whole collar came free of the shirt with a popping of buttons. Paalm stumbled one way, and Wayne went in the other direction.

There was a flicker, and Wayne was standing several feet further back than he had been.

"Remarkably talented," Paalm hissed.

"Yeah, let your friend die once, shame on him, right?" Wayne said wryly.

_ What? _

Wayne flickered away, back into the house. Paalm blinked.

She'd sharpened her ears to the limits of safe perception, and coupled with the Blessings of Presence, she could pick out every noise she heard.

For example, she could hear the click of a gun being cocked behind her.

She spun back towards the street to find a young woman pointing a rifle at her, holding it like someone who knew perfectly well how to use it, hands steady and face set. Paalm searched her memories of Wax's friends— this would be Marasi, then? The constable. Paalm remembered her as someone far too eager to prove herself, but perhaps she'd grown up some. She was dressed well despite the hour, in a buttoned shirt and pleated skirt. Peculiar.

It had been clever, using Wayne as a distraction to get behind her. Then again… "You're facing me alone? Not so wise."

"I find," Marasi said coolly, "that after I've held the power of the Lord Ruler, a single kandra isn't terribly intimidating."

...So Paalm had  _ no  _ idea what she meant by that. "You're a Mistborn, then, or something? You wouldn't be the first, second, tenth, or  _ hundredth  _ Mistborn I've killed— and in my day, they carried around atium." Paalm played out the moves in her head. Marasi would fire the weapon, Steelpushing the bullet to try and catch Paalm off guard. If she was clever (doubtful), she'd Ironpull it back to catch Paalm from behind. Otherwise, she'd probably burn pewter to get in close, maybe coupled with more shooting. The only meaningful thing Marasi might be able to do would be to apply emotional Allomancy, and that wouldn't be enough to overcome Paalm's mind.

"But I have something they didn't," Marasi said.

Guns? Like that made a difference. "And that would be?"

The air shimmered around Marasi. In a wide field around Marasi, actually, as though she were creating a bendalloy bubble—

Or, Paalm realized as her heart sank, dropping the other kind.

"Ahem," said Wax, from behind her. "Turn around— slowly, please."

Paalm did. Wax was pointing a gun at her, but the barrel wasn't loaded with a bullet— it held something that glinted in the gaslamp light, instead.

A spike of fear. "You won't accomplish anything, putting another Hemalurgic spike in me. I'm under Harmony's purview again, and kandra don't have bind points." Not  _ exactly  _ true, but they were easy enough to rearrange.

"That's not what this is," Wax said, voice cold. "You're familiar with the kandra injection, aren't you?"

...Ah.

One of Paalm's friends had been involved in making it, actually. They'd explained that it was a toxin produced by something that lived in rotting food, though Paalm hadn't been very interested in the specific science. It caused muscles to relax to the point of utter nonfunction— entirely lethal if you were human, and  _ deeply  _ inconvenient to a kandra.

"I'd tell you to drop your weapons, but I don't flatter myself that I could tell when you had," Wax said. His voice was suffused with rage. Wax wasn't  _ supposed  _ to sound like that. "So instead, if you move, if you twitch one muscle to do  _ anything  _ besides talk _ ,  _ I'll push this syringe into you, rip out your spikes, and mail you back to TenSoon as a mistwraith."

It would have been easy to shoot any of them. Paalm's gun was still inside her, and she was perfectly adept at firing from the hip— or from the abdomen, armpit, head, or calf.

And then she realized, maybe a minute or two too late, that what she'd wanted when she'd come here was exactly not a fight.

Paalm dismantled her insides, splitting them into folds of tissue and diffusing them through herself. She often liked having organs but not when they did this, not when they twisted like knots inside her. "Okay."

"Shame," Wayne said, sidling up next to Wax. "After you locked me in that closet, I was kinda lookin' forward to seein' you flop around."

"Can I glare at him, Wax?" Paalm asked.

He didn't respond, face set in stone.

Marasi joined the two, lowering her rifle and eyeing Paalm with what looked like pity. So that was awful.

"Why," Wax said. Not  _ asked,  _ really. There was no inflection in the statement.

"Why what?" Paalm asked.

"Why are you  _ here,  _ Bleeder?" Wax demanded.

"Paalm," Paalm corrected instinctively. Bleeder had been...a stage name, she supposed. A persona to wear, the way that now, when she was supposed to be Paalm, she still drew from Lessie's memory. Someone to handle the burden of what she'd set out to do.

"Paalm. How are you here? How are you alive? I've watched you die—" Wax's face twisted, and had Paalm's heart not been dissolved already, it would have broken as Wax failed to say  _ twice. _ " _ Why? _ "

"I...wanted to see you," Paalm said, and realized that it had been a slightly pathetic statement, as well as being very obvious. She evened her voice. "And to apologize. For...a lot."

"You want to apologize," Wax said, disbelief evident in his voice. "For...lying to me for sixteen years, breaking my heart, disappearing, and returning to cause chaos in my city and try to destroy me and everything I love, before dying in my arms a second time. Anyone, am I forgetting anything?"

"Bumped me on the head right good," Wayne piped up.

"Started multiple riots," Marasi added.

"An' got one of my best hats," Wayne added.

Wax nodded. "Wayne's head and hats, and the riots. And my wedding."

"Yeah," Paalm said weakly. "Yeah, that about sums it up."

There was a pianoforte playing somewhere. Paalm opened her mouth.

_ "There are—" _

"You can come in," Wax said.

The music vanished. "Pardon?"

"You can come in," Wax said again. "Walk slowly, and make no moves. If you're going to try anything, it would be better if you did it where we all have eyes on you."

Paalm took a cautious step forward, and wasn't shot, so that was something. 

"And it was powers of observation," Wax said. "You were going to say deductive prowess, or something similar. That wasn't it."

Embarrassing. She walked across the threshold and into Wax's manor.

It was big. Ostentatious. Thoroughly unnecessary and deeply un-Wax, and his position as he led her in, carefully keeping to paths that gave him eight directions of movement, didn't do anything to change her perception of him as out of place in this overdone monument to nothing. Not to mention that he'd downed a glass of metals before coming to the door, and from the smell, it had had his preferred whiskey in it. Today's nobles wouldn't have answered a knock ready for a fight. That was Wax alone, and he was special.

As she reached Wax, he slipped the syringe out of his gun, handing it to Wayne. "Your turn."

"Why me?" Wayne asked.

"I'm the only one who can reasonably use the syringe at long range, but in close quarters, you're more resilient than I am. If it tries to kill anyone, stab it."

"Oh." Wayne perked up. "Well, thanks, Wax. Makes a fellow feel good to know he's needed."

"I'd still feel more comfortable knowing she doesn't have any weapons on her," Marasi said from behind Paalm. Judging by the cadence of her voice, she still had the rifle aimed at Paalm. Pointless, but Paalm couldn't begrudge her the security. She also resisted the urge to put a few eyes on the back of her head to check on her. Humans didn't appreciate that.

She put one in the crook of her neck instead, where it would be less obvious.

"Y'know, we could just search it," Wayne muttered. "Faceless Immortals get all see-through. Seen 'em do it when—"

"Wayne!" Marasi snapped, with a deep flush that felt incongruous with her performance earlier.

"It's a fair point," Paalm conceded, and shrugged off the remainder of her coat and shirt, turning the skin transparent. Marasi went a deeper red, which Paalm filed away for future reference, while Wayne peered curiously around inside her. "See? Copper spikes and nothing more. If I were doing something Harmony disapproved of, he'd...well, I wouldn't be allowed to go around doing it, now would I?"

That had been her big gun, here. The others looked between each other in a moment of silent communication. Paalm tried to catch Wax's eyes, but he avoided hers.

"You're full of jewelry," Marasi said.

"It's a long story," Paalm said.

"You're armed," Wax noted.

Oh. Yes. "That's true. If I'd been here to kill you, I could have just...shot you." She still had Perr's gun. Oops.

"Without drawing?" Wax asked.

Paalm shrugged, adjusting the guns slightly inside herself. Flesh knotted itself around the trigger.

Wayne moved the syringe closer to her neck, and Paalm stopped.

"Hand them over, please," Wax said. "Pointed away from us."

"I'll need them back when I leave," Paalm said as she disgorged the weapons. Wax took them, looking faintly unsettled, and slid them into his gunbelt.

"You got little spikes on those ribs, too," Wayne drawled. "You don't do things by halves, huh?"

Oh. She'd almost forgotten honing her ribs. "...Rarely. They're of no danger to you if you don't get too close."

"Excuse me," Marasi said, voice oddly high-pitched. "But now that we've established that the rogue, insane kandra is unarmed, could we perhaps focus on finding it a shirt?"

"I'm transparent," Paalm pointed out. "You can see my skeleton."

"I can see a good deal more than that," Marasi said stiffly.

"Ah," said Wax. "I'll get one. Wayne, keep an eye on Paalm. Marasi…"

"There's no need to spare my feelings, Wax; I'm quite aware I'm superfluous here," Marasi said, which was interesting coming from someone who had claimed to have held the power of the Lord Ruler.

"Nonsense," Wax said gruffly. "If it tries anything, bubble it."

"Sure. I'll just...do that."

Wax was already in motion, heading deeper into the house. He moved at a trudge, even as each step carried him further than it should have. Storing weight, but exhausted.

Paalm sighed. Marasi and Wayne both flinched.

"...Again, if I'd come here with hostile intent, would I have  _ knocked? _ " Paalm asked.

"Hard to say," Wayne mused. "You're clever. Clever folks are always comin' up with plans what don't make sense, so you can always spot a clever person by if they're makin' any sense or not. And you ain't, which means you're probably bein' clever, which means you could be up to  _ anything. _ " His eyes widened briefly on the last word to emphasize the point.

"That's entirely illogical," Marasi said.

"Aw, Mara, we been over this," Wayne drawled.

Wayne and Marasi marched Paalm into the sitting room, sitting her down on one of two couches placed across each other from a small table. Wayne sprawled out on her left, feet up on the table and syringe positioned next to her shoulder. Marasi sat across from her, very carefully not looking at her.

"I'm no longer insane, you know," Paalm said quietly.

Marasi raised an eyebrow at a point two feet to Paalm's right. "Approximately fifty percent of those suffering from mental diseases struggle to notice their own symptoms. Most people believe themselves to be sane, Wayne possibly excepted." Wayne tipped his hat to Marasi. "What makes you so certain?"

"What makes a human so sure when they've remembered to breathe again after forgetting?" Paalm said. "Everything is clearer now. I know my plan had holes in it. I can see them, now."

"The benefit of hindsight," Marasi said.

"Beyond that," Paalm protested. "I did things I wouldn't have done. Things that nobody with my goals should have done—"

"And you think you can walk up and claim—  _ 'Oh,  _ that wasn't really me, I wasn't myself at the time'—"

"I came to  _ apologize— _ "

"This is beyond apology!" Marasi exclaimed. "The atrocities you committed—"

"You want to talk about  _ atrocity,  _ take a look in the mirror, girl," Paalm growled. Marasi's eyes went wide, cheeks bright red. "Everything I did to this city, it would have done to itself over time." Somehow,  _ that  _ seemed to calm Marasi down. "You should be thanking me."

"You killed dozens of people, and more died in the riots afterwards," Marasi said quietly. "Innate may have been corrupt to begin with, but what you did was the equivalent of setting fire to a home because you felt the work of cleaning it was beneath you."

"And who killed the rioters?" Paalm demanded. "You're a constable, aren't you? You did everything you could to keep everyone alive?"

"We tried!" Marasi exclaimed. " _ You  _ declared martial law! If you hadn't—"

"Nobody told you to listen to me," Paalm hissed. "I gave you a shot at freedom. So you heard orders you couldn't live with. When I did that, I  _ acted. _ "

"And see how that worked out," Marasi retorted.

Paalm sprang to her feet.

Stopped.

"Ow," she said, and slumped back onto the couch, attempting to gather up her muscles and pin them back to her bones as they relaxed involuntarily.

"Sorry, mate," Wayne drawled. "But to be fair, I  _ really  _ wanted to."

Paalm groaned.

"...I apologize," Marasi said. Her face looked green now. "I'll...acknowledge that much of what you did helped us. But I can't overlook the damage you did in the process."

"Mmm," said Paalm, because lips were hard. "Smmrph." Two for two on jumping straight to aggression. Okay.

Marasi frowned. "What was that?"

"She's sayin' sorry," Wayne said. Paalm flopped an arm at him in agreement.

"Oh," said Marasi, sounding slightly bemused. "I'm not sure if I can accept that apology, but I appreciate it. I think."

Wayne chuckled. "Hey, PaaIm, want a drink?"

"Paalm," Paalm mumbled.

" _ Wayne, _ " Marasi hissed.

"What?" Wayne said, innocently. "MeLaan drinks all the time, an' Lessie always liked whisky, or was that a lie too?" Paalm winced. "Anyway, just got a nice new brandy, and it's always good to have someone to share it with." He produced it from between two cushions of the couch.

"That would be Wax's brandy," Marasi said.

"Traded him a vial of steel for it—"

"His vial—"

"An' a vial of bendalloy for that—"

"But you're the Slider—"

"An' a few screws for the bendalloy back. He needs those for his Pushin', you know."

Marasi's mouth hung open a little as she stared at Wax. "If I follow that correctly, you've traded a bunch of old screws for a brandy."

"Nah. That'd be ridiculous." Wayne produced glasses from somewhere as Paalm adjusted her body back into something at least semi-functional. Deciding that normal drinking was going to be somewhat of a chore, Paalm dipped a finger into her glass, sipping through it.

"That's extremely unsettling," Marasi said.

"Blame Wayne," Paalm slurred. "Where's Wax? Should've…" She readjusted her mouth. She had a little more feeling there now. "Should've been back by now?"

"That's what you get when your live up on the fourth floor," Wayne said.

"I'm sort of surprised he didn't just steelpush his way up and back," Paalm said.

"Yeah, well, he's domestic now, ain't he?" Wayne said. "Steris made him stop burnin' steel inside."

"Steri—"

Wax came back down the stairs, carrying a shirt, and he wasn't alone.

Behind him, mostly through his efforts and not hers, was the same woman Paalm had met at ZoBell's party, the first time she'd spoken to Wax as Bleeder. She was thin and angular, with tightly wound blonde hair and a stern expression on her face. She was dressed even more elaborately than Marasi, in a long blue dress that looked carefully designed to attract no further attention than an approving glance. Her features were very little like Lessie's.

Paalm narrowed her eyes a little.

"What happened?" Wax asked.

"I got bored waitin'," Wayne chirped, and Paalm was surprised. He could have mentioned that she'd been the first to show any kind of hostility, and he hadn't. That was...something.

"Ah." Wax sent the shirt flying towards Paalm with a steelpush on one of the buttons. She caught it with a few tendrils of flesh instead of a hand, carefully wrapping it around herself, before returning the color to her skin. She made a bit more of an effort to sit up. "If I'd known, I would have brought down a second syringe." Paalm winced.

She recognized Wax, when he got like this. As he got more and more stressed, it was like he was being Soothed, the emotions giving way to a calm acceptance of whatever was going on in front of his face.

Paalm hated seeing him like this. It was worse when it was fairly obviously her own fault.

Wax and the woman came the rest of the way down the stairs, the woman still moving a few paces behind him. Not Metalborn, or if she was, no type of Metalborn that could contribute to a fight. Not a fighter either— Wax wasn't the type to think in terms of unnecessary chivalry. He'd never done that for her, at least.

She was, with respect to local beauty standards, very attractive. Which of course didn't matter to Paalm, who was currently missing most of a scalp and whose muscle and skin were still drooping slightly.

The woman sat down next to Marasi, Wax wedging himself in at the end of the couch. One leg was draped over the arm, conveying relaxation, but Paalm didn't miss the coin in his hand.

"...Hi," said Paalm. She waved at the woman. "I'm, uh, Paalm."

"We've met briefly," Steris said. Her voice was cool, and held a limited affect. "Though you were wearing a different face at the time. Is it considered polite among kandra to reintroduce ourselves at this juncture?"

Paalm blinked. "...I don't know. I've never thought about it."

"Better to err on the side of caution, then," Steris said, holding out a hand. "My name is Steris Ladrian, née Harms, Lord Waxillium's wife and lady of House Ladrian."

Oh.

Paalm's eyes flicked across Steris, finding what they were looking for on Steris's left hand.

_ Oh.  _ God Beyond, there was a trumpet playing. And violins.

_ "I have a ring, and I have a ring, and I have a ring, and you never did! _ _  
_ _ I have a ring, and I have a ring, and I have a ring, and you never did! _ _  
_ _ Wax wasn't scared of commitment with me _ _  
_ _ He didn't take time to decide _ _  
_ _ It's been barely a year, and still I'm now here by his side!" _

Someone was waving a hand in front of Paalm's face. Predictably, it was Wayne.

Apparently, she'd...just been sitting there. Steris had almost certainly not said any of the words she'd just said.  


"Oh," said Paalm, thoughts suddenly moving very slowly. Emotional Allomancy? Was Steris burning zinc? It seemed unlikely, as whatever emotion Paalm was experiencing right now felt significantly too complex to Riot. "Well...I'm still PaAlm." She stressed the syllable break a little more than she or anyone else usually did. Wayne gave her an odd look. "...Of the Third," she added, feeling a need to add  _ something.  _ She took Steris's extended hand numbly.

Steris shook Paalm's hand perfunctorily and let go immediately. "I can't truly say that it's a pleasure, I'm afraid. But it's good to meet under less immediately combative circumstances."

Paalm nodded, still poleaxed. "...Sorry about killing your priest—"  _ And I'm glad you were able to get married,  _ she tried to finish, but her mouth wouldn't move, a fact which she decided to blame on the paralytic injection that had almost entirely worn off by now.

"Awk-ward," Wayne murmured.

"We're all here," Paalm said, hearing herself as if from far away. "I...assume there are questions." In a pinch, it was easy to default to purpose.

"How are you alive?" said Wax.

"I don't know. I intended to die, and I almost did, but I didn't, and eventually I healed from the damage I'd done to myself," Paalm said uncomfortably. Discussing her near-death tread close to her talk with Harmony, and it dredged up darker feelings. "But—"

"What can you tell me about the workings of the Set?" Wax asked.

There was an odd pulsing in the back of Paalm's mind. Like a heartbeat, but with intent.

"I can tell you the names and addresses of every Set agent I've worked with. The muscle I was given, the people who provided me with aluminum bullets, a woman named Sum who gave me the metal to make…"

"The spikes you used, yes." Marasi was taking out a notebook. "That would be a good start."

Paalm shook her head. "They're unlikely to still be there for you to find. You killed everyone who worked for me, and it's been...months. Anyone who backed me is either dead or gone. The Set was never one to countenance failure. But—"

"Then you're in danger?" Marasi asked.

"I couldn't kill me," Paalm said with a wince. The pulsing got louder. "I doubt anyone else can."

"We could use her as bait," Wayne said. "'Ey, Wax, remember that time—"

"So you don't know anything of use," Wax said. "I suppose if you did, Harmony might have passed it along to me." His face had gone tight again. Steris placed one of her hands on his, and Paalm felt a sharp pang. She could barely hear at this point.

"I...he probably would have," Paalm said. "But listen, Wax, I asked him not to tell—"

"What do you know about Trell?" Wax asked.

Marasi perked up at that. Despite the fact that Wax had been the one asking, it was clear it was Marasi who wanted to know.

"Very little," Paalm admitted. "They were a resource, and something some of the Set swore by. They have something to do with a very old religion, from before the days of the Lord Ruler, but I was never interested enough to ask about it. Presumably a being of equivalent power to Harmony."

Marasi wilted a little. "That isn't any more than we knew already."

"Funny, you not bein' interested in religion," Wayne said, "bein' a secret demitasse an' all."

"I've witnessed the birth or death of every god I've worshipped," Paalm said. "It doesn't inspire faith."

The pulsing stopped, with a feeling like a snap through every tissue in Paalm's body.

She realized, very suddenly and with stark certainty, that she needed to be anywhere else.

"If that's all, I'm going to go. It's been a long train ride from the Roughs, and I'm tired. We can talk more another day if you need anything from me."

She stood up, pleased to find her legs working again. "You don't mind if I...keep the shirt, do you? As you wrecked my coat."

"Ah, I dunno, I think it could be fun—" Wayne trailed off under four separate glares.

"Go ahead," Wax said flatly. "If I return your guns, will you keep them in sight until you're out?"

Paalm nodded mutely. Wax handed them over, and Paalm kept them raised as she left.

She wandered— it felt like wandering, when she felt this lost— out past the furrow she'd left, where her skin and flesh cut a streak of gore across the yard. Her shoes had vanished at some point, stolen by a guard or servant or someone. Paalm couldn't really begrudge them. She formed calluses on her soles as she walked.

The walk back was subtly quieter. Smaller neighborhoods had extinguished their streetlights, and even where there was still light, there were fewer people out and about.

"Walk of shame?"

Paalm's head snapped to the side, and she saw the same beggar she'd passed going the other way. "Of a sort," she said. "Did you sell that earring I gave you yet?"

"Nah," said the beggar. "Ate it."

"You—" She scowled. "You're an augur?"

He grinned wider. "It's nice, in a way. Seeing what I could've been. You get a little addicted to it."

Paalm wondered what she'd see if she burned gold, some day. Lessie? Bleeder? Who could she have been?

The corollary question scorched to think about.

"I see," Paalm said. "You're not a mistborn, are you?"

The man scoffed. "You think I'd be here if I were?"

"No accounting for taste." Paalm drew an aluminum bracelet out of herself. "Here. Don't eat this one."

"Too big," the beggar said. "Why me?"

Paalm shrugged. "You're in the way of my walk home."

She left the man to his business.

By the time she arrived back at her place, it was well past midnight. Someone skulked outside the building, maybe waiting for people wandering the night alone.

"Don't," Paalm said, quietly, as they came closer. "I've nothing worth taking that you could wrest from me."

"What about your life?" The voice was feminine. Smooth. "That matter to you?"

"As I said," Paalm said. "Find better evening pursuits."

Not slowing for the woman, she made her way inside.

She'd left the key with Perr, so she had to pick the lock on her door using a finger. The lights in the apartment had been extinguished, and she adjusted her eyes to see via the faint light coming under the door.

She checked on Perr. The girl had made something of a nest on Paalm's mattress, using clothes instead of sheets and blankets. Not asleep yet, staring at the ceiling.

Paalm went into the bathroom, peeling off her clothing. She hadn't buttoned Wax's shirt correctly, wearing it more like a drape than anything else. She hung it on a towel rack that didn't have a towel on it, leaving everything else in a heap on the ground, including what she'd been storing inside herself.

The shower was icy, but it wasn't as if Paalm had some particular attachment to warmth. The things she'd had attachment to a few hours ago were hollow to her, anyway.

She'd been...stupid. She'd walked into Wax's life again, assuming that even if she couldn't just pick up where she'd left off that there would be...some way of getting back to square one, at least. No such luck.

In the distance, she could hear a flute. It sounded like Terris music.

"None of that now," she muttered, and the music vanished.

She wasn't sure how long she spent, water running through furrows and lacunae in form as she adjusted how her muscle wrapped around her aluminum bones. The water ran black, then briefly pink with the tissues that had been torn away and not yet redigested. She altered herself a little, snipping her remaining hair down to a length short enough that she could spread it over the rest of her regrown scalp.

She slicked the water off of herself, got dressed again, checked herself in the mirror for any inconsistencies, and found that she'd instinctively taken on Steris's features, twisted to fit her own skeleton. She tried on a scowl with them, then a silly face.

It did not make her feel better. Shifting back into her Lessie-alike face didn't accomplish much either, and seeing it in Wax's shirt stung in a way she hadn't been prepared to deal with.

She let the color leach out of her skin until it was transparent again. It wasn't like Perr would notice in the darkness.

She went back into the bedroom to find Perr still staring at the ceiling, eyes open.

"It's morning now, technically," Paalm said. "Have you slept at all?"

"Not having much luck," Perr said. There was a tired edge to her voice, but she still sounded cogent. "First night in a new place. Also, your bed's awful."

"In my defense, I've never used it," Paalm said. "But you should get some sleep. Tomorrow— well, I don't know if it will be a  _ busy  _ day, but it's best to be prepared for it anyway."

Perr groaned.

Paalm sat down next to the mattress. "I could...sing a lullaby, if it would help?"

"How old do you think I am?" Perr asked.

"You're seventeen. You said."

"Yeah, but how old do you think that is?"

"I genuinely have no idea," Paalm said. "Nor have I ever encountered this particular problem before." Raising children was for people like TenSoon.

Perr stared at her. Then she sighed. "Sure. Can't hurt, I guess."

Paalm tried to remember if she knew any lullabies. The Final Empire had had plenty, but they tended dark.

Maybe a kandra lullaby.

The flute was playing again, somewhere. It might actually have been real.

_ "Rest, and mists will hold you tight _ _  
_ _ Tomorrow you'll be someone else _ _  
_ _ But tonight _ _  
_ _ Rest, and mists will hold you close _ _  
_ _ No face to wear, no contract to fulfill _ _  
_ _ Rest, and mists will hold you soft and still _

_ Rest, and mists swirl all around _ _  
_ _ The breath of night will keep your bones _ _  
_ _ Safe and sound _ _  
_ _ Rest, and mists will guard our watch _ __  
_ In time you'll move to carry out their will _ _  
_ __ For now, the mists will hold you soft and still"

It was good advice, Paalm supposed.

"...That's a really messed-up song," Perr mumbled, voice slurred.

"It's this or I synthesize some morphine," Paalm murmured.

"Mmm," said Perr as her breathing evened. Paalm watched her for a moment before standing up and padding out of the bedroom.

Kandra slept, technically. Too much time without rest led to fatigue, and excessive consciousness led to...well, Paalm's mind was already fairly frayed, so at some point she would need to recuperate.

She could skip a night or two until she felt more able to relax.

—-

Perr wasn't an early riser, though Paalm supposed the lack of sleep was a decent excuse. She cut a slice of bread, disappearing outside with it still in her mouth, and returned twenty minutes later clutching a rolled-up broadsheet.

"Where'd you get that?" Paalm asked. "And didn't you have a piece of bread before?"

"Finished it," Perr said through her peach. She thrust the broadsheet at Paalm. "It doesn't have  _ Paranatural Detective,  _ but it's got some Nicci Sauvage stories!"

Paalm took the broadsheet, which called itself  _ The House Record.  _ She flipped through it and handed it back to Perr. "It seems like propaganda, and this entire publication strikes me as a penny dreadful with journalistic jargon to break up the monotony."

Perr scowled. "You  _ didn't  _ read it."

"I did," Paalm said. She needed something to do with herself for the day.

"What's on…" Perr opened the sheet to a random page. "Top of page four—"

"Advertisement for a new Allomantic alloy of tin. Fake. It was tried back in the days of the Empire and it killed several people."

"Uh...bottom left of page eight—"

"Homelessness down in the Second through Fourth Octants, presumably because the homeless have been driven out of the area."

Perr made a face. "Middle of the front page—"

"Soonie cubs." Heh. "I'll buy you one if you're good."

"They're called Soonie  _ pups,  _ actually, an' I'm too old for those," Perr said. "And I've never been good in my life, besides. That's probably why Harmony sent you."

"Harmony doesn't send me places." Paalm squinted at Perr. "...I don't think anyone's too old for Soonie pups. You could use it as a pillow."

"Maybe you should just get some regular stuff for the house?" Perr suggested. "Like blankets? And...furniture?"

"I'll put that on the agenda for the d—"

There was a knock on the door.

Paalm stopped. Looked at Perr, who shrugged. Paalm dropped her voice to a hissing whisper. "Did anyone follow you here?"

"If I'd noticed, I would of said," Perr whispered back.

Paalm drew her gun, moving towards the door. Perr crept after her. "Are you gonna ask who it is?"

Paalm shook her head, putting a finger to her lips as she pulled the safety back. She gestured at Perr to move back from the door. Perr, who apparently was not familiar with the sign language of the Imperial military, came closer, whispering more quietly. "Why not?"

Paalm put out an arm, levering Perr behind her. She tightened a few muscles— a bullet would hurt a great deal more, but be less likely to go through her and hit Perr.

She whipped the door open, bringing her gun up to chest-height—

Which put it just below Wayne's ribcage.

Paalm blinked.

"Wow," Wayne mumbled. "Figured I'd be done gettin' guns pointed at me out of doors when I 'pologized to Ranette—"

"How did you find this place?" Paalm demanded.

"Followed you last night."

" _ Why? _ "

"Wax asked," Wayne drawled.

"Really?" ...That had been an excessively emotional response. And there was an odd rhythm in Paalm's tissues, where the idea of Wax trying to investigate her rested comfortably.

"Well, not in  _ so  _ many words…" Wayne said, and the rhythm disappeared. "But he had that look in his eye, that he gets when he  _ really  _ wants someone to do something, but he doesn't wanna say it out loud."

"And what he really wanted you to do was show up on my doorstep?" Paalm said.

"Can't help but notice you're still pointin' a gun at me, Le— PaaIm."

"It's Paalm," Paalm said, not lowering the gun.

"What am I sayin'?" Wayne asked. Before Paalm could respond, he grinned. "'Sides, if I'd come with hospitable inventions, would I have knocked?"

"...I know you know the words 'hostile' and 'intentions', Wayne," Paalm said, but she lowered the gun.

"So, can I come in?" Wayne asked.

"And can I get out?" Perr asked.

Wayne blinked, and tried to peer around Paalm at Perr, while Perr did her best to peer around Paalm at Wayne. Paalm placed herself more firmly between Wayne and Perr, barring Perr's passage and Wayne's way in.

"Hey, P?"

_ Damn it. _

"Yes, Wayne?" Paalm said.

"Why've you got a kid?"

"I'm not a kid, I'm Perr," Perr said. "Who are you?"

"This is Wayne," Paalm said. "He goes where Wax does."

"Why?"

"I couldn't tell you," Paalm lied. "Wayne, this is Perr. I found her in the Roughs and she followed me here."

"Sounds kinda familiar," Wayne said.

"She's not a Wayne," Paalm said.

"Can't be. I'm Wayne," said Wayne.

"Uh, pretty sure any time your name turns into a title, that's not a good sign—" Perr said.

"Mark of honor, it is," Wayne drawled. "So, P, came here with an offer an' a plan. Well, an offer for you to make a plan."

"Wayne," said Paalm clearly and slowly. "While large elements of our interactions were a deliberate performance on my part, I was still  _ there  _ for them, observing the situation and developing a deeper and more comprehensive account of the behaviors of the people around me. Considering that I did this around you for sixteen years, and that I am the smartest being currently occupying this God-forsaken orb, what  _ possible  _ evidence do you have to suggest that I would collaborate with you for any reason?"

"Well!" said Wayne. "Y'see, while I was followin' you, I hadda put myself in your shoes for a bit—" So that was where they'd gone. "an' I got to thinkin' about the look I saw in your eyes when—"

"Get to the point," Paalm said, because Perr's chin was resting on her shoulder with how far she'd leaned forward.

"You didn't come here to apologize," Wayne said cheerily. "You came here to get back with Wax."

" _ Knew it, _ " Perr breathed.

Paalm sighed. "Yeah. No point in denying it, I suppose."

"I'm in," Wayne said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~I Got A Ring~
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gt2rq61sfsxlNIlEWcicTGVhI7lRYNSX/preview?usp=sharing
> 
> Fucking hate Wagner but the pun was too good to pass up
> 
> ~Kandra Lullaby~
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ss2GcKkydhB1HAvrGcfgbr_8elDj2XS7/preview?usp=sharing
> 
> -Wayne no  
> -Everyone's here now! Except MeLaan. Why are Marasi and Wayne at Wax's house? If Paalm weren't being self-centered we might know today  
> -Nobody's views on gender reflect those of the author— "it" gets used for Bleeder through most of SoS, and I figure Wax is currently doing his best to depersonalize her bc he doesn't want to risk thinking of her as Lessie. As to why Paalm doesn't correct anyone— hey look there are more notes  
> -Marasi's views on policing and authority don't reflect those of the author  
> -Nobody's views on anything reflects the views of the author quite frankly  
> -Paalm's views on the intelligence of Paalm do not reflect those of the author


	4. I Just Want to Help Wax Out!

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Perr asked.

Paalm paused in the middle of her packing. She'd taken the jewelry out of herself, returned Perr's gun, and put on an outfit more suited for wandering Elendel, a sensible black buttoned shirt, a pair of suspenders, and a jacket that had slightly less dust on it than everything else she owned. She'd drawn the line at a skirt— now that they weren't required for blending in, Paalm found she didn't miss them one bit. She'd put away the jewelry, except for a few pieces she'd hidden in a pocketbook in her shoulder. She'd put on her not-Lessie face again, leaving a few features changed and keeping the hair in her new shorter configuration.

Whatever, right?

"I'm almost certain it's not," Paalm said. "I've known Wayne for sixteen years and I don't think he's grown up in the year and a half I haven't."

"Then why are you going along with it?" Perr took a bite out of her jerky.

Paalm frowned. "I don't think I have any better options, really." Perr scowled, but didn't pass comment. "I'll get us a table on the way back. And some linens."

"Could use a chair too," Perr added.

"Sitting is bad for you."

"I'm not gonna defend chairs. We need at least one chair," Perr said. "Nobody's making  _ you  _ sit."

"...Fine," said Paalm. "Try to stay out of trouble."

"You know me," Perr said cheerily.

"Not really, but what I've seen of you is why I say it," Paalm said.

"How are you even gonna carry a chair?" Perr asked.

"I'm stronger than I look," Paalm said flatly.

"Well, you kind of look like a middle-aged lady, so I'd really hope so," Perr said.

"I'm over—"

"I  _ know  _ how old you are. You don't need to give me the speech every time." Perr scowled. "...So what am I supposed to do with myself?"

" _ You  _ can get the furniture, if you want," Paalm said. "I'm engaging in a…" She rolled the word around in her mind a little. "Wacky scheme."

Perr stared at her.

"No? I wasn't sure that sounded right," Paalm said.

"...All I'm saying is that even if you're a thousand years old or whatever—"

"More than a thousand—"

"I've probably read more romance novels than you have—"

"Absolutely you haven't," Paalm said.

"I don't think you understand—"

"I have mimicked every existing romantic permutation, and you'd be surprised how many people will fall for a fairly simple ruse if it adheres to things they want and their preconceptions of what life entails." Paalm frowned. It had worked for Wax, even. "An understanding of popular fiction is often helpful for infiltrations when an identity is cut from whole cloth and not an impersonation of an existing person." An art that had decayed somewhat in later generations of kandra. Paalm couldn't remember a single kandra after the Eighth Generation who could properly replicate a face on short notice.

"...I don't think you've mimicked  _ every  _ romantic permutation," Perr said.

"Do we need to go over again just how long I've been doing this?" Paalm said.

"Have you ever courted another girl?" Perr asked. She looked a little startled, like she hadn't expected to ask that. Apparently she was still giving thought to her revelation from yesterday.

"Frequently. Boring. Try something else," Paalm said.

"...How is it?"

"It's fine, I suppose," Paalm said. Perr's face fell. "...Again, my perspective is likely to be different than yours." Perr perked up again a little at that.

"...Been a fellow an' courted a fellow?"

"That isn't  _ less  _ boring." It was interesting how Perr seemed to readily identify Paalm as principally a woman. Did that say something about Paalm? About Perr? It was true that the current body she wore was female, but it wasn't as if that wasn't malleable. Paalm's best guess at the moment was that viewing her as a woman kept Perr more comfortable living with her, but Paalm was a  _ kandra,  _ so.

Perr scrunched up her face. "Gotten hitched to someone with another family somewhere else?"

"A few times." Mostly back in the Final Empire, and Paalm didn't really want to explain that to Perr right now. "It's tiresome." And uncomfortably relevant.

"Uh...okay. What about being a girl, with another girl, only you've gotta pretend to be a Survivorist an' feel really bad about it, but she's Pathian an' she's more okay…" Perr scrunched up her face further. "An' also she's got koloss blood an' her parents don't approve of her not becoming full koloss, so you gotta challenge her folks to single combat to prove that staying with the humans won't make her soft—"

"You've lost me."

"Aha!" said Perr, and shoved a worn, dog-eared book in Paalm's face. Paalm studied the cover curiously, and found two young women, one notably larger and more muscular than the other and neither with features even remotely adherent to forms achievable by non-kandra. "We've moved on, old lady!"

"I've probably got a thousand years or so left before I wear out," Paalm noted. "I'm not  _ that  _ old."

"Anyway, my point is I don't think wacky schemes are a really good idea?" Perr said. "On account of they sort of always fall through."

"I'm a better schemer than most," Paalm noted.

"...Anyway, I don't really wanna get the furniture," Perr said. "I just meant, y'know...what are we actually gonna do here? We have some money if we sell all that jewelry—"

"Which we should do slowly, to avoid drawing attention," Paalm said. "I'll wear different faces when I do it, but still."

"...Right," Perr said. "But when we're done with that, uh...then what? Living here seems kinda expensive."

Paalm shrugged. "We'll need to find some sort of employment."

"...That easy, huh?" Perr asked.

"I know how to do essentially everything," Paalm pointed out. "And you...must have some marketable skills. You can shoot, right? Become a...constable?"

Perr made a face. "Do you think I fell in with Dent's gang 'cause I get along with lawmen?"

"No, you're right, it would be problematic," Paalm muttered. "I don't know. We have a few weeks to think about it before it becomes a problem."

"...I'm still confused as to why you brought me here," Perr said.

"To be fair, I'm confused as to why you came," Paalm retorted. "Wayne's waiting. Stay safe."

"You keep saying that!" Perr called after Paalm as the door closed behind her.

Wayne had, rather predictably, given no further indication of his intentions, simply marching off downstairs and telling Paalm to meet him. She found she wasn't particularly startled by the eccentricity— he hadn't changed a lot.

Paalm made her way downstairs, where she found Wayne sitting next to a woman who had almost certainly tried to mug her last night. The two were chatting about something deeply inane, and Paalm coughed loudly to get Wayne's attention. They both perked up, Wayne snagging a flask back from the woman.

"—yeah, put some aloe on it, it'll clear right up," Wayne drawled as he joined Paalm, sprawling casually against a lamppost. The woman glanced at Paalm, scowled, and didn't bother getting up. "'Ey, P."

Paalm tapped her foot. "It's been ten minutes, Wayne. You don't need to greet me again."

"Only been ten? Felt like longer."

Paalm frowned. "Is that Perr's accent?"

"It's interesting, ain't it?" Wayne said. "You found her out in the Roughs, right?" Paalm nodded. "But she's Terris, an' she sounds like it."

"I haven't pried," Paalm said, clipping her voice. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't either. Or interact with her at all. Or let other people know about her."

"Uh," Wayne said, letting Perr's voice slip briefly. "Some reason?"

Paalm raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm not yet certain of how many enemies I have here, and I'd prefer that our association remain private until I know it's safe."

"Heh. Right noble of you," Wayne said.

"Hm," Paalm said. "Your nasals are off. Perr pronounces the stops more than you do, but it's slowly fading. If she'd had a few more years alone in the Roughs, her accent would be closer to yours. You're overcompensating from what you find natural."

Wayne blushed a little. "This from a kandra who can't even fix her 'a'?"

"Enough about the rusted 'a'. It was one time. I was distracted and experiencing a psychotic break."

"Still figured it out," Wayne drawled.

"And did you tell anyone, or did you immediately run and confront me and get taken hostage?"

"Well, nobody's perfect."

"Clearly," Paalm said.

Wayne made a thoughtful face, or what passed for one with Wayne. "You know it's a bit weird you brought her here at all, right?"

"Her call, not mine," Paalm said.

"Awful thing to do to a kid, if you ask me," Wayne said brightly. "This here's a terrible environment to grow up in."

"I'm inclined to agree," Paalm said. "But it isn't really my place to tell her what she can and can't do. If she wants to follow me, that's her right."

"Yeah, you would be big on that, I guess."

"Imagine," Paalm said dryly. Wayne chuckled.

Paalm frowned at him.

Wayne grinned.

"...Can I ask, Wayne?"

"Sure sounds like it."

Paalm felt the urge to roll her eyes. "Why are you okay with me when Wax doesn't seem to be?"

Wayne frowned. "Guess I know you better."

"I find that very unlikely," Paalm pointed out.

"Nah, see, the way it is is like this. Wax looks at you, an' he sees Lessie, right?" The faint glow in where Paalm had left her stomach faded with Wayne's next words. "'Cept Lessie died in his arms twice, so he gets freaked out, 'cause he remembers the bad times. An' when he remembers the good times, they make the bad times worse, on account of how illumination only accentuates the emotional penumbra of the whole shebang."

Paalm stared.

"Read it in a book once," Wayne said lazily. "But I got more bad times with you, like how you shot me those times—"

"You survived—"

"So it's easier for me to remember that I enjoyed most of the rest of the time you were around, now we've worked things out."

"We worked things out?" Paalm asked.

"Yeah, you were there," Wayne said, explaining nothing. "An' anyway, once you get past the surprise factory—"

"Factor—" Paalm corrected automatically.

Wayne grinned. Paalm narrowed her eyes at him.

"Once you get past all the smoke an' noise of the surprise, it makes a fair piece of sense if you were a Faceless Immortal the whole time."

The real problem was that, in the usual fashion of anything Wayne said, there was truth in it. Lessie had gotten along with Wayne those sixteen years. She'd taught him...maybe less than Wax had, but she liked to think that she'd helped accentuate his natural talent for imitation, and they'd certainly had their share of misadventures together.

Lessie had thought of him as...well, he'd been Wax's sidekick, and she'd been married to Wax.

_ Not properly. Not the way she is. Maybe just because you need propriety here, but...she got the ring, and you didn't. _

Paalm pushed the thought aside. It made Wayne her... stepsidekick? Sidekick-in-law? They'd drifted apart as he'd grown up (or not) and she'd pretended to, but there were memories. Drinking together over a campfire on a stakeout and swapping rude stories about Wax.

As she'd gotten closer to Wax, she'd let a few more kandra mannerisms slip into Lessie's personality. Carefully, naturally, as sixteen years of growth would dictate.

(She'd been hoping to tell him, someday. That hadn't panned out.)

It hadn't really occurred that she'd have been getting closer to Wayne at the same time. The younger man wouldn't be so hung up on masks, she supposed.

"Anyway…" He scratched his head. "I liked Wax better around you than I do when he's with Steris. He's all about bein' a lord now, y'know."

Paalm made a face. Wax wasn't a  _ lord.  _ And being surrounded by people calling him Waxillium was a hideous fate.

"'Xactly. He needs savin'!" Wayne kicked at the ground. "An'...I mean, I miss him."

"Don't you live with him?"

"Nah. Wax got me my own place after they got married. Visit most of the time, but... ain't the same, is it?"

Paalm raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Wayne asked.

"Thought this was about me and Wax," Paalm said lightly.

"'Course it is!" Wayne said, too quickly to not be lying.

Somewhere, there was a harpsichord playing. That was new.

At least it was Wayne singing.

_ "Think about Wax, up in that big fancy house _ _   
_ _ With his perfect wife, perfect life, perfect spouse" _

"What do you think a spouse is?" Paalm asked. Wayne gave her a weird look, so maybe this was on Paalm and not him.

_ "Does that sound like the Wax we both— uh, care about?" _

"No," said Paalm, suppressing a giggle despite herself.

_ "Right! _ _   
_ _ Can't stick a lion in its cage, whoa-oh _ _   
_ _ Can't keep an actor from his stage, oh no—" _

Paalm winced. Wayne didn't notice.

_ "Wax is trapped and the two of us are gonna let him out! _

_ Why wear a dress when you could wear a duster? _ _   
_ _ Nuts to tariffs, votes and filibusters _ _   
_ _ All we gotta do is remind him how it was _ _   
_ _ And we'll get him back doing what we know he really does! _

_ 'Cause everyone's got a place they belong to! _ _   
_ _ If the place is right, how can it be wrong to _ _   
_ _ Set him free _ _   
_ _ Get him back with me _ _   
_ _...And also you!" _

Paalm grinned. Wayne twirled around the lamppost like an idiot.

_ "The two of us and you out on a case _ _   
_ _ The three of us, and the thrill of the chase _ _   
_ _ He'll never go back once he's seen what we could do together _ _   
_ _ Goodbye cod liver, hello shots _ _   
_ _ By which I mean whiskey, gun, and coinshots—" _

"Thank you, Wayne, I understood," Paalm said.

_ "And it'll be the two of us forever _ _   
_ _ Uh, the three of us, whatever! _

_ Why wear a dress when you could wear a duster _ _   
_ _ Fate's so overrated; ruin rust her! _ _   
_ _ All we gotta do is remind him how it was _ _   
_ _ And we'll get him back doing what we know he really does! _

_ 'Cause everyone's got a place they belong to! _ _   
_ _ If the place is right, how can it be wrong to _ _   
_ _ Set him free _ _   
_ _ Get him back with me _ _   
_ _...And also you! _

_ When there's someone in your life _ _   
_ _ And they're not where they're meant to be _ _   
_ _ It's like missing metalminds _ _   
_ _ Filled with every part of me _ _   
_ _ And it's like time slows down _ _   
_ _ When he's not around _

_ 'Cause everyone's got a place they belong to! _ _   
_ _ If the place is right, how can it be wrong to _ _   
_ _ Set him free _ _   
_ _ Get him back with me _ _   
_ _ But I'm not doing this for me _ _   
_ _ It's all for him _ _   
_ _...And also you!" _

Paalm eyed Wayne, and she wondered how much of that had been Paalm's reading into things, and how much had been there for the skimming. Wayne's eyes were wide, and bright, and his mouth was set in a wry knot. The face he'd always made just before he turned away to hide his crying.

Paalm was also  _ pretty  _ sure she hadn't been square dancing with Wayne just then, but you never could tell with Wayne.

"You know, Wayne, the voices in my head give you a much better singing voice than you've actually got," Paalm said, voice light.

Wayne took the out. "I got a great singin' voice," he drawled. "I got notes you wouldn't hear on one of them big-city pipe organs." He elbowed Paalm in the ribs with a wince. "Hearin' voices? Now here's what I do when that happens—"

"I know your solution, Wayne, and I suspect it got you to your current state," Paalm retorted.

"An' I wouldn't have it any other way," Wayne said with a beam. "What kinda voices are you hearin'?"

"...The usual," Paalm said, deciding that of everyone she knew, Wayne was certainly the most  _ likely  _ to take mysterious musical numbers in stride, but that explaining it to anyone was probably just as well not done. She'd only just gotten over being crazy; it would be ideal if nobody knew quite how deep it apparently ran.

"Got it, got it," Wayne said sympathetically. "So look, it's real simple. We just gotta get Wax to remember the good times better. He's got a case;" That would explain why everyone had been at Wax's mansion, then, "some Metalborn have gone missing around the city, an' it worries him, on account of the Vanishers an' all."

"Vanishers?" Paalm asked.

"Hundredlives' old gang," Wayne said.

Paalm blinked. "Miles is here too? How is he?"

Wayne was making a face.

"Oh dear," said Paalm.

"Went as bad as it gets," Wayne said solemnly. "Which, of course, I'd seen coming from the start, if anyone had  _ asked— _ "

"I didn't like him either," Paalm pointed out. He was too invested in the idea of higher purpose, and he'd been a rival for Wax's attention in the old days, and consequently suspicious of her. Which, fair, but inconvenient. "What happened?"

"He got a gang together. Started robbing and killing the nobles, decided they were all corrupt," Wayne said.

Paalm tugged at her collar awkwardly. "Not... _ wrong. _ "

"An' kidnapped a few women with Allomancy in the blood, for...well, y'know."

"...Ah," said Paalm. "...I never got the impression of him as  _ that  _ bad."

Wayne shrugged. "Guess you don't really know a fellow until you shoot the metalminds out of him. He got Steris, which got Wax on the case. There was a lot more to the whole thing, but Wax an' Mara caught him, an' he got executed. Good riddance, if you ask me."

"Clearly," Paalm said.

"He was working for the Set, we're pretty sure, same as you were," Wayne said, and Paalm winced. 

""I guess I'm not the first to run with Wax and then turn against the city?"

"Not even the last," Wayne said. "His uncle, Edwarn?"

"Vicious man, from what I've heard," Paalm said. "Him too?"

"An' his damn sister," Wayne said, and spat on the sidewalk. "Lying b—"

"Wayne," Paalm said sharply.

"...Mmh," said Wayne.

"His  _ sister?  _ Telsin?"

"She got away," Wayne said flatly. "She got away, an' I couldn't do a damn thing to stop her. Even after she shot him."

Wayne looked, as he often did, much younger than he really was. He'd never been able to grow a beard, and his face was round despite his lean frame. When he was emotional, he wore it openly, and right now he was.

He caught Paalm looking, though, and a grin spread across his face, leaving behind laugh lines that made him look his own age again. "Point is, if it's the Vanishers back again, or someone's picking up the whole Metalborn-snatching thing, that gets Wax real nervous."

"As it should," Paalm said.

"He says this is the last thing he wants to do before settling in as the high lord of the house," Wayne said. "But I figure if you're helping out, and you two are working together again instead of trying to kill each other…"

"He's a lawman at heart," Paalm said. "If we can get him to remember  _ that— _ "

"Then he'll ditch this mousetrap, I'm hoping," Wayne said. "It's killing him, you know."

Paalm stared at the ground.

"Bein' something you're not meant to, I mean." Wayne said. "Hidin' who you really are. Tears you up inside, don't it?"

Paalm set a hand to her stomach. "Yeah."

"Just...can't stand seein' Wax do it to himself," Wayne muttered.

Paalm wondered just how much Wayne understood about the situation.

"...So, question," Paalm said. "Where exactly are we going? We've been standing here for several minutes while you...exposit."

Wayne blinked. "We're not goin' anywhere."

"Then—"

Paalm became aware of a  _ horrible  _ noise on the edge of her hearing. A moment later, Wayne perked up. "There she is!"

"What in the Lord Ruler's name—"

Some sort of metal hippopotamus was lumbering down the street towards them, puffing smoke from its rear end and snorting like a Steel Inquisitor on a lonely night in the Soothing station.

Paalm had fought hippopotamuses before, and was currently wildly outmatched.

She'd been an idiot, letting Wayne lead her out here alone. And he'd seen Perr, too. She needed to move,  _ now— _

She realized, as the contraption screeched to a halt in front of her and Wayne, that it wasn't a hippopotamus, but some sort of...horseless carriage. Or possibly a carriage with a hidden horse, judging by the horrific sounds coming from it and the amount of gas produced. Its back was cored out, and sitting in front of what looked like a ship's wheel was Marasi, who looked like she would rather be essentially anywhere else.

"What the  _ hell, _ " Paalm hissed at Wayne.

"Never seen a motorcar before?" Wayne drawled.

"Of course I have. Hideous machines. What happened to horses?"

"Time change." Wayne tipped his hat to Marasi as he stepped into the front seat—

"Not a chance," Marasi snapped. "What's it doing here?"

"What's  _ she  _ doing here?" Paalm demanded.

"O-oh," Marasi said, turning faintly pink. "My apologies, I—"

"No, I mean, Wayne, why is Marasi here?"

"Oh," said Marasi, and flared up again. "Then I reiterate my question! Need I remind you that the last time we talked, it tried to kill us all?"

"I  _ didn't, _ " Paalm said. "If I'd been there to kill you, as I've noted repeatedly, I wouldn't have  _ knocked. _ I'd have set fire to the house, or if I was deeply worried about casualties, I'd have replaced one of the servants. You can't honestly tell me you know everyone who works for Wax well enough to notice. I could have just gotten  _ hired  _ as a servant, legitimately, and you'd never have known anything was amiss until—"

"'Ey, PaaIm?"

" _ Paalm, _ " Paalm growled.

"Maybe you missed out on it, but here in Elendel friends usually don't talk to friends about how they'd kill each other," Wayne said. "Never really got the hang of  _ why,  _ 'course, but that's the way it is."

"...I know that," Paalm grumbled. "I'm here because Wayne brought me here. Why are  _ you  _ here?"

"It's the weekend, and I have a day off," Marasi said. "Which I'm spending on...this. Wayne, you said you had a lead! Which is why I brought the motorcar!"

"Yeah, I know, if I hadn't of told you that we'd of had to walk. Anyway, I said I had an idea for solving the case," Wayne said. Interesting, that his accent had shifted somewhat. He gestured at Paalm. "She used to be pretty good at this kinda thing, back out in the Roughs."

"And you trust it?" Marasi asked, staring at Paalm with intense dislike. Paalm stared back with only moderate dislike, because she frankly couldn't bring herself to care about Marasi one way or the other.

"Sure. Why not?" Wayne asked.

Marasi stared at him. Then stared at Paalm.

Paalm did her best to smile. The teeth she'd made were very nice, and she'd had practice forming every facial expression of which humans were capable, but she was also confused and irritated and she wasn't entirely sure how it balanced out.

Marasi went briefly red, and let out a long sigh. That was interesting, and Paalm took the time to really assess the woman. She held herself straight, even behind the wheel of her horrific contraption, in a way that the average constable wouldn't seek to. Possibly an effect of being a woman in a principally male field, and needing to present a particular image. Paalm felt, however, that that would entail blending in more with the particular culture of the local constabulary rather than going to every effort to demonstrate femininity— maybe that was Paalm's own biases. She'd never liked dresses.

She looked a little closer. No, not the rigidity of command, but the rigidity of stricture, closed instead of open, chin tilted up but arms folded in, features set in brittleness instead of firmness. Strong, but with a glass jaw emotionally. And...hmm. Her face carried a similar shape to Steris's, but she wore plainer clothing, and where Steris was rather clearly defenseless, Marasi had given an aura of being very good with that rifle of hers. Related, but Marasi wasn't rich the way Steris was, which meant illegitimacy, which explained the insecurity. Added together with the observations of last night, and—

Paalm tipped a lazy salute at Marasi. "All I want is to help," she said, and she added a fractional clip into her voice, bringing her vowels in line with Marasi's measured upper-class accent instead of her native kandra accent. Marasi would be very unlikely to notice, and probably Wayne wouldn't either, but there was an unconscious mirroring there, of lines and posture, and it would evoke more trust than Paalm's Lessie-alike. "I understand if you don't trust me, after everything I've done. But I'd appreciate a chance to prove myself, and I assure you that I  _ can  _ if you give me that chance."

Marasi went a deeper red. The comment, as Paalm had suspected, had hit home a little.

"Are you gonna leave us waiting, Mara?" Wayne asked.

Marasi sputtered.

"There's no need to be worried about me," Paalm said. "You're a Mistborn, aren't you? You said so—"

Marasi pursed her lips, and Paalm trailed off.  _ Not  _ a Mistborn, then?

"Yeah!" Wayne said, picking up on Paalm's thread as effortlessly as he ever had, even if Paalm was suddenly unsure of where the conversation was going. "Really scared of one measly kandra, huh?"

Paalm gave Wayne a disappointed look.

Wayne ignored it. "C'mon, Mara. Remember bein' God? Flyin' through the air, on fire, all those muscles—"

Marasi had turned from red to vaguely puce, deepening towards a shade Paalm associated with exposed muscle tissue. "There's no need to go into it."

"You took out a whole battalion—"

"With the specific intent of never discussing it again." Marasi let out a longer sigh, still beet-red. "You can get in. Wayne, stay in the back with it."

Wayne opened the door for Paalm, who gave him a disapproving glare but sat down. The seat was surprisingly comfortable, and didn't smell entirely like smoke. Wayne plopped himself down next to her.

"What do you mean by the power of the Lord Ruler, if not being a Mistborn?" Paalm asked, curiosity getting the better of her current attempts to not antagonize Marasi.

"Nothing," Marasi said.

"But—" Wayne said.

" _ Nothing, _ " Marasi said again, and started the motorcar with a sound like two Coinshots brawling in a mint. The seat juddered under Paalm.

"There's nothing to...hold onto," Paalm said. "What if you need to make a sudden stop? Or a sudden start?"

"It's not so jerky as that," said Marasi, and the motorcar lurched into motion. Paalm was shoved back against her seat as the car shot through the streets, moving at a clip that left nearby surroundings blurry and even more distant ones in continuous motion.

"...Can we go any slower?" Paalm asked.

"We're going at under twenty miles an hour," Marasi said. "That's slower than a coach in a hurry."

"It is  _ much  _ worse," Paalm muttered.

"It ain't  _ that  _ bad." Wayne said.

"It reminds me of the Final Empire, frankly," Paalm said. "Noise. Distraction. Smoke belched into the air, covering the world in ash."

Marasi winced. "There are advantages. It's faster than a horse if it needs to be, can move at high speed for longer, and fuel is cheaper than feed." Her voice was slightly guarded, but not hostile. Probably she expected Paalm to start another fight. That, if nothing else, persuaded Paalm to not jump to accusation.

Mostly.

"Takes up more space," Paalm added. "Makes more noise. Requires the city to be remolded around it. And you can't cuddle up to one of these on a cold night— or eat it when you run out of food, if you're desperate." Paalm eyed a tree with apples growing from it, picking one as the motorcar shot by it. She'd give it to Perr when she got home. "Though I suppose the whole Basin is molded around its population, so this isn't so much more of a stretch," she admitted.

"It's...a worthwhile perspective, and you're not the only one to express it," Marasi said. "But the world moves forward whether we like it or not. There's nothing to be done but learn to live in the world that's being built."

"Or become the architects ourselves," Paalm muttered, but her heart wasn't entirely in it, having been left a block or so behind as the car chugged along.

It was, admittedly, hard to really dislike Marasi. The girl was earnest and intelligent, and if her opinions of the world were less than fully-formed, it was because she was young and didn't quite think of herself as such, making her simultaneously deeply idealistic and deeply unclear on the implications of her ideals.

"Cars really aren't so bad," Marasi said, and this time there was a faint half-laugh as she swerved around a corner. Paalm's head bounced off the side of the vehicle. "It's fast becoming my favorite way of getting around, and it's certainly an improvement over being carried around by a Coinshot."

Paalm felt a faint heat across her face, and sealed away the veins she'd placed there. Her face would look a little less human, but it was better than being a millennia-old kandra and visibly blushing, even if her skin was too dark to really show it. "I never minded."

"Well, I  _ do, _ " Marasi said. "For those of us bound to the earth, a car's about as good as it gets, I think." There was a strange, wistful note in her voice, that Paalm filed into her understanding of Marasi.

There was...some sort of instrument playing, and not one that Paalm could name. The rhythm was fast, intense, like running horses— or like the sputtering of Marasi's motorcar's engine. Despite their pace of motion, the volume wasn't changing.

Twice in maybe an hour. That wasn't the most positive of signs.

"You'll get used to it," Marasi said.

_ "Yeah, this is my car _

_ Racing through streets like a bat out of hell _ _   
_ _ Smoke pouring out my tailpipe _ _   
_ _ Racket like a mob boss, out of control _ _   
_ _ Outrunning the sun when I'm driving by moonlight! _

_ I go fast! _ _   
_ _ Though it's not really that fast! _ _   
_ _ A galloping horse is quicker _ _   
_ _ And takes up less space, and makes much less noise! _

_ Technically this isn't really my car _ _   
_ _ I borrowed it from the constabulary! _ _   
_ _ It's the dawn of a new generation _ _   
_ _ And in my darker moments, I'm pretty sure we're  _ _   
_ _ Both being set up to fail! _

_ I go fast! _ _   
_ _ Except when the motor runs out _ _   
_ _ Or when I turn a corner _ _   
_ _ Or when the traffic's heavy _ _   
_ _ Or when I'm at a stoplight _ _   
_ _ I'm still stuck at this stoplight _ _   
_ _ Still waiting on this stoplight _ _   
_ _ Oh rusts I hate this stoplight _ _   
_ _ Did someone break this stoplight? _ _   
_ _ What if I burned some metal _ _   
_ _ No I might miss this stoplight _ _   
_ _ Survivor, change this stoplight! _ _   
_ _ Oh, look, that worked. _ _   
_ __ Let's go fast!"

"No, I still hate it," Paalm decided.

"You and Waxillium both," Marasi said dryly.

Paalm chuckled, and actually felt it for the first time in a while.

There was, she had to admit, a certain comfort to the car that a coach or carriage lacked. Paradoxically, not being face-to-face with everyone else there, sealed in a box, made the whole thing feel more...in common. The way it was sometimes easier to talk to someone when they were turned away from you.

And she'd made it ten minutes or so without nearly fighting anyone.

"So where are we going?" Paalm asked. "Wax's house?"

"He...doesn't particularly want to see you," Marasi said. "I'd assumed we were meeting him, but—"

"Nah, we'll head to Marasi's place," Wayne said.

"Why mine?" Marasi asked.

"Cleaner," Wayne drawled.

"...Can't argue with that."

Paalm was losing the ability to focus on the conversation. Intellectually, it had been very obvious that Wax wouldn't want to see her. A completely reasonable thing to assume and not one that should have been in any way surprising.

It still hurt.

"Are there recent crime scenes I could look at? Wayne already filled me in on the broad strokes, so all that's left is—"

The motorcar came to a sudden halt, and Paalm was jerked forward. Not prepared for the stop, and with nothing to hold onto, she pitched past the front seat, over the front of the motorcar, and she had just enough time to think  _ Well isn't that peculiar  _ and harden her skin into thick calluses before she hit the ground with a leathery thump.

Marasi was rushing out of the vehicle. "Are you alright?"

"I'm a kandra," Paalm said, getting to her feet. "They don't call us Faceless Immortals because of how easy we are to kill."

"But—" Marasi looked very startled, for some reason. "If you lose a spike, or break bones—"

"Neither of which just happened," Paalm said. "I've had much worse, trust me."

"I…" Marasi looked very uncomfortable, and then her face lapsed back into frustration. "...Can I talk to Wayne for a moment?"

"I don't see why not," Paalm said. She wasn't entirely sure why Marasi seemed to be reacting so badly.

Wayne was ambling up as they spoke, and Marasi caught him by the coat, dragging him to one side. Interesting to note that at no point did she actually touch the man.

Paalm had a few moments to ponder the depth of weirdness induced by human psychology before she decided she wanted to know what was being discussed. She adjusted the sensitivity of her ears, moving a few nerves she wasn't using and rotating them slightly to catch the conversation better.

"—are you doing, Wayne?" Marasi hissed.

"Solving a case?" Wayne suggested.

"You told her what we were doing?"

"Like I said. Solving a case."

"You don't solve a case by sticking an insane kandra on it," Marasi snapped.  _ Ouch.  _ "Or a lawman, for that matter. Waxillium may be interested in this case, but that doesn't make it a matter to be settled by stomping in and knocking the right heads, or shooting the right people. Nothing I've seen of Paalm, or Bleeder, or Lessie, or  _ whoever  _ she is suggests she'll take a different approach."

"She's smarter than any of us," Wayne said stubbornly. "We've been tracking these fellows for weeks now, and nothing. Maybe we need a little insane."

"We have you, don't we?"

"Aw, I'm not insane," Wayne said. "I'm just perceptive."

"Clearly not  _ that  _ perceptive," Marasi said. "Can you look me in the eye and say, honestly, that this isn't some plot to mess with the case so Waxillium has to stick around longer?"

Wayne looked away. "He's just gotta remember how much he likes it when he's got something to hunt down."

Marasi pursed her lips. "He's retiring, Wayne. There's nothing to be done about it; we all have to figure out how to get along without Dawnshot helping us. We did before, we'll do it after."

That explained Wayne's urgency here, then.

"There  _ ain't  _ any without," Wayne said. "You know, right? You get what it's like, being around him."

Marasi tinged red. "It's...not a problem for me any more."  _ Interesting. _

"Yeah, guess it wouldn't be, huh, what with—"

"Hsst!"

"Aw, Mara, nobody's listening." Wayne waved to Paalm, who waved back, affecting mild impatience while waiting for her companions to return. "See?"

"That's...not the point," Marasi said. "And we're getting off-topic. He's going to be a father soon."

Then he and Steris were...trying. If not  _ tried. _ Paalm's day got better and better.

"Yeah, sure,  _ soon, _ what with Steris bein' frigid an' all—"

In the tilt of Marasi's hips, Paalm noted that Wayne was very narrowly avoiding being slapped. He seemed to note the same, and stopped talking.

"This isn't a discussion," Marasi said, finally. "I don't know why it even would be, since there's nothing I can do about it. But if you think that bringing Paalm onto this case is going to somehow make Wax more inclined to keep on dispensing vigilante justice throughout Elendel, I suggest that you prepare to have your fantasy shattered."

She stalked back to the car in a huff, Wayne trailing behind and shooting Paalm an apologetic smirk. She shrugged, and did her best to pretend that none of what she'd heard had affected her.

Her best being perfect, if either of the two noticed that she'd been eavesdropping they gave no sign. The rest of the drive continued in an uncomfortable silence, which was convenient as it matched the uncomfortable silence in Paalm's head, thoughts blotted over by hovering clouds of inky emotion.

Marasi turned out to live in the Fourth Octant as well, in a small apartment further towards the edge of the city than Wax's mansion. The apartment building was more like a cluster of small houses all nailed together, and stepping inside, it certainly looked...livable. Marasi's decorative tastes strengthened Paalm's existing conclusions about her— there wasn't much, but what there was was well-maintained, elegant, and kept carefully organized, with no coats tossed over chairs or dirty clothes lying on the floor. A desk in what was presumably an office was the only space that couldn't be called neat, having been covered in what looked like photos— Marasi closed that door quickly, as well as the one to her bedroom.

"This is nice," Paalm said. "I haven't had a chance to see Elendel housing much lately." Was it a constable's salary? Some sort of family stipend? It was a big enough place for two people to live and mostly avoid getting under each other's feet. There was no way to ask without being rude, so Paalm decided to steal a few old bills when she got the chance.

"...Thank you?" Marasi said. Or asked, really.

Wayne sprawled into a chair. Marasi stared at him. "No, please, sit."

"I'm already sitting."

Marasi glanced back at Paalm. Paalm didn't really want to sit down, but if everyone else was, it would likely look strange—

There was a knock on the door, and everyone froze.

Paalm looked to Marasi. "It's early for mail, isn't it?" She adjusted the gun she'd stored in herself, forming a few extra layers of muscle on her arms and legs.

Marasi looked to Wayne. "Is Waxillium coming? I thought you said he didn't want to see her." Her voice was cautious, and she was reaching for a gun of her own.

Wayne looked very relaxed. "Oh, by the by, I invited—" he said a name that sounded vaguely familiar, but which Paalm couldn't immediately place. "Turns out she's not working on anything lately, an' she wanted to come by."

Marasi stared at Wayne, with more shock in her features than when she'd thought they'd had a prospective intruder. "You  _ what? _ "

"What? You don't like her now?" Wayne drawled.

"That— it's not the issue!" Marasi said, face turning red. "You can't invite people to  _ my  _ apartment, first of all, and secondly—"

Another knock.

"I'll get the door?" Paalm said, when nobody moved.

Marasi nodded, still frozen. Wayne nodded more casually.

Paalm went to the door and opened it.

"Okay, look, I know things have been awkwaaaaa..."

The woman at the door trailed off. She was very tall, more than six feet, and built like a pinup with a striking hourglass figure, in bright red clothing that seemed to be putting in a great deal of work holding everything in place. She was also very obviously a kandra, because humans required mechanical assistance with the shape she'd put together, and Paalm paid close enough attention to spot where the corset wasn't. One of the later generations, presumably.

"...Hi," said Paalm.

"PaAlm?" the other kandra whispered. "You're not dead?"

"It's, uh...that's correct." Paalm smiled sheepishly. "If we've met, you weren't wearing the same face, though I apparently was?"

"Sort of. Almost," said the other kandra. "I'm MeLaan. Of the Seventh." Her eyes, which had been narrowed with slight mischief when she'd opened the door, were widening.

"Oh.  _ Oh. _ " Paalm's memories of Bleeder's last night, with some exceptions, were spotty. She remembered stabbing a handful of kandra with the relaxation serum— "Right. That was...you. Okay."

MeLaan was glancing up towards the sky. There were a pair of banjos strumming somewhere out of sight. Paalm opened her mouth. "I should probably apologize—"

MeLaan wrapped her arms around her, squeezing with enough force to bruise a human. Paalm, who was not quite a foot shorter, was nearly lifted off the ground.

"...What are you doing," Paalm said.

"I know you know what a hug is," MeLaan said into Paalm's shoulder.

"I know what a hug is. I am asking why you are currently hugging me." Paalm's voice broke a little. "I...we've spoken for minutes at a time, maybe. You were TenSoon's ward, weren't you? I tried to kill you, and I would have if I'd had the time. I wasn't myself, but...no excuse. Why—"

"You're  _ alive, _ " said MeLaan, and didn't put Paalm down. "Everyone thought you were dead. Again. And here you are." She tightened her grip, like she was trying to confirm for herself that Paalm was still there. "That's all that matters right now."

"Oh," said Paalm, and let herself relax, the pressure turning from crushing to comforting as the banjos petered out.

It took longer than Paalm expected for MeLaan to put her down, and when she did, it felt reluctant. Paalm stumbled away, attempting to regain her shape where the hug had deformed it slightly.

"Anyway," MeLaan said, as if she hadn't just made herself amazingly vulnerable. "Wayne. Mara." She tipped her hat to the two of them, and Paalm spun round just in time to catch Wayne tipping his own in response, and Marasi going as rigid as a corpse. "I hear there's casework happening?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~And Also You~
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/16adlZVpHqA40VfBP-tmZXP8cTRGiZNSe/preview?usp=sharing
> 
> Yeah, Wayne is Taylor Swift now. What of it?
> 
> ~I Go Fast~
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r1qo8a_4Xrx8vFzWI0537xQlrD2EnOXo/preview?usp=sharing
> 
> Me: haha what if I wrote a gas gas gas pastiche that's just marasi talking about her car  
> Me: [actually examines the lyrics to gas gas gas]  
> Me: well okay then i guess i have to do something different with it
> 
> Notes:  
> -god forgive me I'm really writing straight people huh  
> -So, Wayne and Paalm. SoS, while I am generally very fond of it, has the same problem as most of Era 2 Mistborn, where it focuses principally on Wax's emotions about the main plot to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. We don't know anything about how Wayne feels about Lessie being Paalm, which leaves me free to take some creative liberties.  
> -From the brief snapshots we see of Wax's time in the Roughs, Wayne basically showed up immediately after he'd arrived, and Lessie shortly after, at which point Wax got better at his job and started forming a sort of lawman network throughout his area. But Wayne stuck around for a while, and it can be reasonably assumed that if Paalm was assigned to protect Wax (and furthermore fell in love with him) that Lessie was also pretty present in his life, and by extension in the lives of the people around him. Maybe we'll see some of that in future chapters.  
> -Further, Wayne's personality doesn't entirely make sense with Wax as his sole model of what a person should be like. Wax is extremely stoic and drinking tremendous quantities of Respect Woman juice, and Wayne is...not. And while Lessie presumably was not a misogynistic person, she's distinctly more crass than is Wax. Plus, Wayne picking up disguise tips from a kandra is funny.  
> -Conclusion: Lessie and Wayne must have had some interaction over the sixteen years they knew each other, and I think that interaction was probably a pretty close friendship. Wayne furthermore is used to antagonism from people he likes, wasn't a huge fan of Innate, hugely dislikes Steris and Elendel, and ultimately probably wasn't too bothered by Paalm's stint as a serial killer.  
> -Anyway Wayne and Paalm should be buddies.  
> -I like Wayne. I really do. But he is canonically kind of a shit, and more of a shit than I think Sanderson was really going for— and since a lot of this fic is about what goes on when Wax isn't looking, that's going to come into play.  
> -Also yeah he is rather clearly in love with Wax so jot that down  
> -Square dancing in its modern incarnation is from more recent times than Era 2 Mistborn is really seeking to imitate but the concept is fairly old, so I feel comfortable using that as a benchmark for something Paalm might be aware of.  
> -Paalm stop manipulating people you're trying to befriend  
> -hmm what's that? Did Bands of Mourning go differently in this story? I don't remember Marasi growing giant muscles or being on fire. And I thought Wayne shot Telsin later on. I'm sure it's fine  
> -yes, there's a plot to all this beyond Paalm being Paalm.


	5. Wax's Friends are Weird

If Miles hadn't been a Bloodmaker, he'd almost certainly have had a headache.

"Just go right in," Lessie said. "Look at us. Wayne, Miles, both of you can heal up if anything goes wrong. Wax can deflect bullets. Barl, you're...here." Barl made a face at Lessie, but it wasn't like he had something he could say. "We hit them hard and fast. That's almost always the best option, when you're as good as we are."

She'd said that three times already.

Miles didn't care for Lessie. The woman was a good enough lawman, but she was Wax's through and through, which meant a disregard for almost anything that didn't suit her image of what the law was _supposed_ to be. Despite having grown up in the Roughs, she'd gotten caught up in Wax's romanticism of the noble lawman. The _civilizer._

It was compelling romanticism. But still flimsy.

"You _say_ that, Less, but I notice you're not the one gettin' shot," Wayne drawled. His feet were up on the card table in the backroom of the dingy little inn they were using as a war room. There was a grin on his face, and a bottle in his hand that wasn't nearly full enough.

Where did Wax keep picking up all these strays? What was it about the man that bent the world towards him the way it did? And why _Wayne?_ "Getting shot isn't an issue for us," Miles said. "Don't be cowardly."

"See?" Lessie said with a smirk.

"That said, Lessie, it's _not a good plan,_ " Miles said. "It doesn't matter how invincible we all are. A straight charge against who knows how many men with guns and who knows how many Metalborn is never a good plan for getting where you want to go. Read your military history."

"Military history isn't relevant," Lessie said lazily. "Military generally implies _roughly_ equivalent fieldings between sides— even grossly mismatched armies rarely reach the point of actual direct mismatched engagement. What you want to look at is Final Empire accounts of the Steel Inquisitors, and how _they'd_ hit a target. Tactics and strategy are a very effective _substitute_ for raw power, but when you want to break up a group of people who put together some weapons and think that makes them above the law, a show of strength— like three Twinborn all working together— will scare them off real quicklike."

"Assuming the Ingots don't have Twinborn of their own," Miles said.

"Assuming they don't," Lessie said. "Or, you know, assuming I've been sneaking around their little camp the past couple weeks, and figured out the capabilities of every single one of 'em. They've got a Seeker to suss out spies and that's it. The three of you go in, and the two of us as backup, we'll finish this without a single shot, if we're fortunate."

There was a long silence around the little table.

"How—" Barl started.

"Usual way," Lessie said.

"Hope you're a better dancer than you look," said Barl appraisingly. Miles glared at him, and caught Wax doing the same, which filled him with a sudden flash of annoyance that he couldn't place.

"Had a few lessons," Lessie said, with a soppy sort of look at Wax that she obviously thought she was doing a good job at hiding. Wayne made a gagging sound, and Miles found himself agreeing. "Point is, they're putting up a front. If we challenge them, really challenge them, they'll fold like a house of cards."

"It's a good plan," Wax said, finally, and that sealed it.

Wax wasn't the leader of the group, according to Wax. It was just that, when Wax spoke, people got it. He didn't bias himself one way or the other. He _loved_ Lessie, he cared deeply for Wayne, he...respected Miles, Miles supposed. He didn't care for Barl, and it was obvious in every interaction they had. But his own opinions didn't blind him to the ups and downs of their plans. If he said Lessie's idea was good, it meant he'd genuinely gone over it in his mind, and decided it was the best option.

Miles still didn't like it. If the Lost Ingot gang folded, they'd escape justice. Finishing it without a single shot meant a dozen men and women who had decided the law didn't apply to them all sliding back into society, ready to do it again the next chance they got.

But Wax was set, and that meant everyone else would be too. Wayne was already getting up from the table.

"Lessie," Miles said.

She smiled at him, a lion's grin more than a friendly gesture. He didn't return the expression. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," she said, and slowed down, letting the others trickle out of the room before her. As Barl trailed out, Lessie leaned her back against the doorframe, feet braced to block the way out.

It was strange how she could do that. Lessie wasn't any kind of Metalborn, unless maybe she was an aluminum gnat and hadn't told anyone. She had a gun and a crossbow on her, but neither would hurt Miles. He was infinitely the more powerful between them. And she wasn't afraid in the slightest. She never seemed to be.

"I know you don't like me," she said.

"I don't like most people," Miles pointed out. "You, I don't trust. It's different. You expect me to believe you just slip in and out of the Ingots' camp whenever you please, and nobody's picked up on the spy in their ranks?"

"Pretty much," Lessie said. "Call it feminine wiles, if it bothers you."

"You've never had those," Miles said.

"Heh," said Lessie, enunciating the word. "Got me there." She detached herself from the doorframe. "Anything more you wanted to say, or did you just want to accuse me of being a crook?"

"I just thought you should know I've got my eye on you."

"You've had your eye on me the last ten years, Miles. When have I ever messed things up for us?"

"You're going to let them escape justice," Miles said.

"Murder was never my idea of justice," Lessie said lightly. "They're trying to survive out here, same as we all are. If they start shooting, I'll shoot back, but we may as well _try_ something else first."

Miles made a noise that he didn't think really counted as speech, but Lessie nodded and stepped out of his way. Like she'd been the one who had wanted to talk and not him.

"We're getting older, Miles," Lessie said, as he was halfway past her.

"And?"

"And age calcifies us," Lessie said. "It gets harder and harder to change as you put more and more behind you. If you're sure this is how you want to be…"

Miles scowled, and left Lessie behind.

—--

It took Paalm maybe five minutes to realize that the group gathered in Marasi's apartment was not a crack team of Inquisitors. Not that a crack team of Inquisitors was quite as efficient and frightening as the skaa had believed— each Inquisitor was _individually_ terrifying, to be sure, but as a group they suffered the same issues as any group— but the Steel Inquisitors of the Final Empire rarely spent so much time being...human.

Wayne had placed his feet up on Marasi's coffee table, she was trying to keep them off it, and it was reaching a point where they were both wasting metals on the spat. MeLaan and Marasi kept snatching glances at each other when they thought the other wouldn't be looking, heads snapping away the instant they made eye contact. MeLaan _also_ kept glancing at Paalm, though she didn't seem quite so embarrassed over it, staring at her like Paalm would vanish if she didn't regularly remind herself of her existence.

 _Everyone_ was periodically watching Paalm, additionally, probably because the last time they'd met she'd tried to kill them all. But that seemed fair.

"—not inclined to think it _is_ the Set," Marasi said. "Ironically, it's too subtle. The Set acts on a broad strategic scale, but everything they do is made as noticeable as possible, because they're _trying_ to— Paalm, are you paying attention?"

"Yes," said Paalm. "Promise," she added, forming an extra eye on her forehead and redirecting a few nervous functions to split her focus between Marasi and the files she was reading over. "I'm just catching up on things."

"...That's extremely unsettling," said Marasi.

"It's not _that_ bad," MeLaan said. "I could do it, if I wanted."

"But you don't," said Marasi. "And I appreciate it."

"Oh," said MeLaan. "...Well, good."

Paalm certainly wasn't sticking her hand in _that_ wasp's nest.

The file went over seven people who had all been reported missing within the last month or so, which in Paalm's opinion put very low odds on their continued survival.

It wasn't hard to see why someone could draw connections, and at the same time why anyone _not_ looking for a pattern would gloss over it. Each of the missing people was an Allomancer, and most had access to the battle metals— a Lurcher, a Coinshot, a Pewterarm, a Tineye, a Rioter, and then a few terms Paalm didn't recognize. Something called a Slider and something called a Nicroburst. Must have been a Twinborn term. None were wealthy— Allomancy implied some sort of noble ancestry, but it didn't need to be recent or important, and by the time Paalm had stopped keeping track it had gotten so filtered through generations of skaa that Allomancers were popping up just about anywhere— but with their abilities, each had managed to find some sort of employment in the city. Never difficult for Metalborn.

None had had family or close friends. Each had only been reported missing when they hadn't shown up for work.

Each had disappeared without a trace. Paalm had asked if she could look at crime scene reports, but there weren't any. Nobody's homes showed signs of struggle, and everyone had clearly gone missing unexpectedly, critical items left behind. There were clear patterns, visible to anybody looking for them.

At the same time, they were people going missing in a large city, which was more or less what people did. In Luthadel, nobody would have glanced twice— another point in favor of Elendel, Paalm supposed. On the other hand, if you _weren't_ actively looking out for people trying to collect Metalborn, nothing about any of these people was special, and the constabulary had evidently come to exactly that conclusion. Each case had been quietly left unsolved and ignored.

Fortunately, Paalm— and maybe the people with her in Marasi's apartment— were a little better as people.

Still. "Have any Feruchemists gone missing? Does your constabulary not track them?"

"The Terris...police themselves," Marasi said uncomfortably.

"'Cept when we don't," Wayne muttered.

"But Waxillium went to ask a source there, and she said that no Feruchemist has gone missing yet. And she tracks all of them, everyone with Feruchemical blood in the city."

"It's how we found poor Idashwy," Wayne said. Paalm winced.

"So far, then, it's only been Allomancers that have disappeared. Maybe the kidnappers felt that kidnapping Ferrings would draw down exactly the kind of attention they were trying to avoid," Marasi said.

"A Coinshot went missing," Paalm said. "And a Pewterarm, too."

"You drew the same conclusions we did," Marasi said. "Statistically, resistance on the part of the victim will foil most kidnappings."

"Not in my experience," Paalm said.

"Because your experience is in kidnapping people for a purpose," Marasi said.

"What?" Paalm asked.

"When you've been assigned to do something, it means you have to actually do it, wouldn't it?" Marasi asked.

MeLaan made a face. "Best not to get too into it."

"But...essentially, true," Paalm agreed. "What of it?"

"Most kidnappings, and violent crimes in general, aren't so directed," Marasi said. "A target is picked more for looking vulnerable than for what they might have to offer— that is, they are a target first and their value as a target is determined later. If you grab a man walking home drunk after midnight, and he starts Pushing scrap at you, most would-be kidnappers would run and attempt to find a different victim later. The fact that Rian and Degard went missing, as opposed to turning up with interesting stories about attempted kidnap, suggests some legitimate intent behind their disappearance, and furthermore some concerted ability."

"...Well, that's what I thought," Paalm muttered, chagrined.

"And it's good to have confirmation," Marasi said. "I was getting worried that we were working on too narrow a viewpoint. So...the kidnappers must have had some kind of edge as well. Metalborn of their own, or Leechers—"

"Leechers?" Paalm asked.

"Chromium Allomancy?" Marasi said. "To burn out metal stores?"

"...Chromium?" Paalm said.

Marasi frowned.

"I'll take this one," MeLaan said.

There was a…

Actually, what instrument _was_ that? It sounded extremely strange.

Were the pigments around MeLaan's eyes running? She looked like she was wearing some sort of _extremely_ strange makeup.

This was really weird. Paalm looked to the others, finding them similarly...bedecked.

MeLaan was singing. Her voice seemed strangely amplified, almost pained with the intensity of it.

 _"Do you remember when the ash fell, and the skies were burning?_ _  
_ _Do you remember how it felt to watch the eschaton?_ _  
_ _Do you remember when it ended, and the world kept turning?_ _  
_ _Science marches on, as we greet the rising dawn_

 _We've got new metals!_ _  
_ _Duralumin, aluminum's counterpart_ _  
_ _Burn it to strengthen all your Allomancy, tap it for a heart-to-heart!_ _  
_ _Let's review metals!_ _  
_ _Nicrosil and chromium are power boost and power drain_ _  
_ _Feruchemically they get a little complicated, so don't ask me to explain_ _  
_ _The new metals!"_

"This is getting a little off the rails," Marasi said, thankfully. "Let me help." Harmony's rotted nuts.

 _"Gold will show the pasts that you've abandoned_ _  
_ _Electrum looks ahead and not behind_ _  
_ _Gold, if tapped, will heal to keep you standing_ _  
_ _Electrum drawn upon, will help you carry on_

 _We've got new metals!_ _  
_ _Cadmium and bendalloy contract and dilate chunks of time_ _  
_ _Cadmium will let you hold your breath a while, bendalloy delays mealtime_

"Did you just rhyme time with itself?" Paalm asked.

 _Let's review metals!_ _  
_ _Cadmium is kind of useless, absolutely super weak_ _  
_ _Allomantically, and also Feruchemically, the outlook there is pretty bleak_ _  
_ _With new metals!"_

...Paalm was pretty sure she was reading into Marasi's demeanor a little too much. Maybe she just had more confidence within her own time bubbles?

MeLaan reached out for Marasi's shoulder. Marasi looked vaguely uncomfortable, and MeLaan's hand fell short.

Wayne was finishing out the song, it seemed.

 _"We still have Coinshots, we have Skimmers,_ _  
_ _But now there's Nicrobursts and Spinners,_   
The world moves on, we all adapt—"

Paalm cut in.

_"I think that's quite enough of that!"_

_"To new metals!"_ Everyone sang.

"And don't get me started on Feruchemy, or Twinborn combinations," MeLaan finished, and it turned out that the makeup had been part of an elaborate visual hallucination, apparently.

"...Uh, okay," said Paalm, and decided she was probably essentially filled in and could get a book from a library at a later date.

"Wait, so you're _not_ a Mistborn?" Paalm asked Marasi.

The concept of a Leecher was unsettling. Annoying for a human Allomancer, quite probably lethal for a kandra. At least it was apparently only by touch. Still...not ideal, especially if the people Paalm was hunting had access to that particular capability.

"...So we're looking at a person of some Metalborn ability," Marasi said briskly. "Possibly more than one. _Probably_ more than one, actually. There have been no reports of violence associated with any of these missing people, no sign of struggle in areas where they were last seen."

"And too many of them were taken at once," MeLaan added suddenly. "It didn't occur until I saw Paalm, but think about it, right? These people _do_ have things in common— they clearly weren't random picks off the street. If you're going to kidnap someone knowing their abilities _and_ that they don't have close connections to report them missing until they show up for work, you have to have been following them for some time, don't you?"

"Why did seeing me remind you of that?" Paalm demanded.

"I think we both know," MeLaan said.

"Fair enough." Paalm shrugged.

"You can't disappear two people like that within a week," MeLaan said quickly, gesturing at two of the names spread out over Marasi's coffee table. "So multiple kidnappers per person, likely, and multiple _groups_ operating at once— that says organization, doesn't it?"

"Then it _is_ the Set," Marasi said, perking up.

"Or someone using their tricks," Marasi said.

"Or someone using their tricks," Wayne said, a bounce in his voice. "PaaIm—"

"Paalm," said Paalm.

"...What'd I say?" Wayne asked.

"PaaIm," Paalm said.

"...An' what'd you say?" Wayne asked.

"PaAlm!" Paalm exclaimed. "My name is PaAlm, not PaaIm! You've heard it said several times!"

"...Huh," said Wayne ingenuously. "Must have read it. All looks the same in writing."

Paalm scowled. "When would you have _read it?_ "

Wayne jerked a thumb at Marasi. "Her case reports."

"...Oh," said Paalm.

"When else would I have read it?" Wayne asked. "Blame Mara's printing."

"This isn't on me!" Marasi protested. "Maybe if you read anything without pictures—"

"I don't care whose fault it is," Paalm said. "It's been a problem for several chapters now, it's out there, so we can put it to rest.".

"...Chapters?" Marasi asked.

Paalm frowned. "Like...chapters of our lives? You know."

"Not...really?" Marasi said.

MeLaan was giving Paalm a very strange look.

"You know," Paalm repeated, and tried to decide why she'd used that particular phrasing.

"Maybe we can hash out the ontology later," MeLaan admitted. "Wayne, pronounce Paalm's name right, please."

"Thought I was," Wayne said cheerily.

"I doubt every word in that sentence," grumbled Paalm. Wayne beamed.

"We're moving a little off-topic—" Marasi started—

There was a flicker, and Wayne's feet were up on the table.

Marasi stared at them. Took a long, deep breath.

Wayne snickered.

MeLaan pressed her lips together, eyes sparkling.

Marasi let out the breath, and leaned back against her chair. Her face was red, and the corners of her lips kept twitching up—

When they did, the one she glanced to was MeLaan. Paalm smiled, slightly. Things were making a little more sense in some ways. Hopefully that could find its way to...something.

Marasi coughed. "Alright. Paalm, names aside, do you have any ideas about the missing people?"

"Oh. They're dead," Paalm said.

Everyone's smiles, blushes, and suppressed amusement vanished.

"That's...statistically likely," Marasi said, slowly. "But I think that it's too early to—"

"Dead," Paalm repeated. "What do you know of Hemalurgy?"

There was a long silence.

"Wax had that book—" Wayne started, and trailed off.

"It's where our Blessings come from," MeLaan said seriously.

"The Set was using it," Marasi said. "They gave themselves extra Allomantic and Feruchemical abilities. You used it as well, didn't you?"

"I...yeah," Paalm said, and glossed right over that bit. "It's a complicated technique, but the grafting of the Metallic Arts is a simple enough application. If someone's kidnapping people with the battle metals, it implies a need for those people's specific Allomantic abilities, rather than the Allomantic potential of their line. They're not being taken further than city limits— they're brought to the base, spiked for their abilities, and disposed of."

"That's horrible," Marasi said.

"But practical."

"How do you know they're not being taken out of the city?" Marasi asked.

"Why kidnap someone from a populated area if they have access to anywhere else?" Paalm retorted. "Easier to spirit someone away if you have no infrastructure for finding them, or if nobody cares. But if this were the Set, they'd be finding their victims throughout the Basin, spread out enough to look like the normal attrition of life. Strangely enough, when you're not trying for shock and awe, subtlety _is_ of use. The fact that they're targeting Elendel itself, and with this level of sloppiness, means that they're desperate. The Set, from my experience, doesn't _do_ desperate. They're working on the Set playbook, but they don't have the Set resources."

"Could be this is one of a number of equivalent operations across the Basin," Marasi suggested.

"Don't really seem like their style, though, does it?" Wayne said.

"Style or no," Marasi said. "If Waxillium's taught me anything—"

"Get shot where it don't kill you?" Wayne said lightly. Paalm saw MeLaan wince, and Marasi sighed.

"It's best to approach a situation by looking at the facts, rather than by making any assumptions."

"Nuts to that," Wayne said. "You know a guy, you know what he'll do, an' we've been outdrawing the Set since we found 'em. No offense, Paalm." Oh good, he'd actually gotten her name right.

"...None taken?" Also what.

"The first time we get outside eyes on this, she says what we've all been thinking— this ain't the Set, but it's someone who looks an awful lot like 'em."

"How unbiased is that opinion?" Marasi asked. "You'd been talking to her before we all got here, hadn't you?"

"All he said was that Wax was worried this was connected to the Vanishers. And that the Vanishers were connected to the Set, I suppose," Paalm added, "but I was connected to the Set too. And I think that whoever's doing this is _linked,_ just...not them. A fringe group, or ex-members trying to scrape up some power without their patrons."

"...That seems reasonable," Marasi said.

"Which leaves us with only a whole city to search!" Wayne said brightly. "Great."

"You can't narrow it down by using the locations of the disappearances?" Paalm asked.

"That could as easily be a red herring as anything else," Marasi said. "And I've been running checks of every funeral service and graveyard in the city— wherever the bodies are ending up, it's not being tracked. I've been checking the broadsheets too, for any sign that anyone's noticed anything strange."

"The broadsheets vary between propaganda and pointless sensationalism," Paalm said.

"But they can provide clues to what's worrying people," Marasi said. "If you know what to look for, they're very useful."

"Hm," Paalm said, because she honestly couldn't come up with a counterargument. "But I do think you can narrow it down somewhat. Look."

She stabbed her finger at the map of Elendel. "The homes of the victims _roughly_ trace out this railway line, between the inner length of the Fourth-Fifth Canal, and…" She drew her finger along the line, out to a station a little way past the last ring-road of the Second Octant. "Here."

"That made us think of the Vanishers too," Marasi said. "They were intercepting trains using a crane—" How were birds of any use in train interception? Paalm decided she didn't want to know. "—But when they started kidnapping people, they were doing it obviously. You can't just disappear someone off a train."

"You can," Paalm said. "But I doubt they are. It's rather difficult. The thing is, though, whether or not their central headquarters are _located_ somewhere near here, they're clearly using the line to get between points in the city. Maybe tracing people who use the line regularly. And there's only so far you can get an Allomancer, especially a Pewterarm or emotional Allomancer. It's rather difficult to keep a person entirely incapacitated, and a corpse is of no use whatsoever for Hemalurgy. At the very least, they have _something_ set up in the general area. A base or two where they can bring people, a place to dispose of bodies."

A silence.

"That's...something," Marasi said. "There are still miles of line to search, though."

"But we can rule a great deal of it out." Paalm grabbed a pen from the table, marking the map. "Hemalurgy is a messy business at every step. People need to be brought in, bodies need to be gotten rid of, and in the meantime, blood gets _everywhere,_ and there's frequently a great deal of screaming _._ Residential areas are nosy, or quiet, or cramped. Business areas are _observed._ Tourist areas— nothing can happen there, obviously. The constabulary doesn't want something damaging the impression someone might have of Elendel. You want warehouses, in areas where nobody pays too much attention, reachable by carriage so someone can be hidden away…"

Marasi joined in, marking off locations of her own. She knew the city better than Paalm did— admittedly not terribly surprising.

"It's not enough," Marasi finally declared.

"We have it down to two locations, though," Paalm said. "That's not sufficient?"

"Two isn't one," Marasi said. "And they're on opposite ends of the city. If we go to one place and alert someone operating there, they could be gone by the time we make it to the other."

"MeLaan, Wayne, and I can all go undetected," Paalm said. "I imagine you could too," she added. "If we investigate the areas—"

"We wouldn't be going in guns blazing anyway," Marasi said. "But somehow, that _does_ tend to be how it ends up. Four of us together is a bit of a giveaway no matter how effective our disguises, and Waxillium tends to stand out."

Wayne nodded heartily. MeLaan coughed.

"You're a _Faceless Immortal,_ MeLaan," Marasi said.

"Suppose we split up, then," Paalm suggested.

"We don't have the people," Marasi said in the tones of someone who had said it multiple times already. "The constabulary isn't going to commit anyone to something that might be a bust— it won't look good if they're raiding random buildings and finding nothing. That leaves Wax, Wayne, MeLaan, and me, and when we don't know what we're up against, splitting past that would be irresponsible."

"You have me," Paalm offered.

It wasn't as if she hadn't implied it before, but somehow saying it directly was what got everyone to shut up.

"Once again, I'm on your side," Paalm said. "Even without my skills as an impersonator, I'm over a thousand years old. I'm a master with guns, bows, knives, canes, fists...and I more or less can't die. I'm a very useful person to have at your back."

"It's a good point," Wayne was the first to say. Bless the man, not that there was anyone Paalm would have trusted to administer a blessing.

"And...I want to help," Paalm said. "I've never _not_ wanted to help."

She'd tried, at every turn, to help, even when she'd lost sight of how.

"Hemalurgy is an ugly art. If I can do something to reduce the number of people using it, I want to," Paalm finished.

"...It does make life easier, if we have a second kandra," MeLaan said, and grinned at Paalm. Paalm smiled back, and felt like there was a weakness in the smile.

"Then...Paalm and MeLaan together, and Wayne and I with Waxillium?" Marasi suggested. "Is that amenable to everyone?" Paalm couldn't help but notice that Marasi's gaze flashed over her and Wayne and didn't quite make it to MeLaan.

And that MeLaan didn't look too terribly pleased with the arrangement.

"Seems a bit unbalanced," Wayne drawled. "Two kandra on one side, an' all of us on the other side there for the shooting."

"You're a Bloodmaker," Marasi said tersely.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want to just get shot forever," Wayne said. "'Sides, I'll die eventually."

"Just out of curiosity, Wayne, how much do you think I enjoy getting shot?" MeLaan asked.

"I mean, it does seem to happen an awful lot—"

"Yeah, because you two always find the most dangerous place in the world and immediately head straight for it—"

"Getting shot is common," Paalm said flatly. "It barely hurts and it does no appreciable damage. Don't be such a mistwraith, MeLaan."

" _Wow,_ " MeLaan said, and leaned back into her chair. "And I vouched for you."

"It's not a bad point," Paalm said. "One kandra in each group means that it would be impossible to incapacitate all of us at once, for one."

"Unless they have doses of the kandra serum," Marasi said tightly.

"Which wouldn't be any safer if it were Paalm and me," MeLaan said, voice suddenly, strangely gentle. "Worse, even, if they could stick us both."

Marasi worked her jaw.

"What, Mara, you don't wanna hang out with MeLaan?" Wayne asked. He tipped his hat to MeLaan, who tipped hers back. "Why don't the two of us go with her, and send Wax with Paalm?"

Paalm's heart shot up into her throat, leaving a lightness behind.

"That's...a very bad idea, I think," Marasi said.

Parts of Paalm agreed. Louder parts of her wanted to argue.

"It's a very _good_ idea," Wayne said, and those louder parts hummed in response.

"It's somehow both," MeLaan said. "I'm impressed, actually." She tipped her hat to Wayne, who tipped his back. Marasi looked like she'd swallowed a lemon.

"We... _have_ worked together well in the past," Paalm pointed out. "For quite some time."

"And then you tried to kill all of us," Marasi said.

"For which I have apologized, I think," Paalm grumbled. "I don't imagine any of you trust me more than Wax does. But I know Wax. He'll understand that this is the best arrangement of people...though probably I shouldn't be the one to tell him. But you need my help for this operation. You need a way of making sure that you can trust me. And Wax is the only one here who can accomplish that, quite frankly."

"Little rude," MeLaan said.

"But not inaccurate," Paalm said. "You were holding onto me, and you let me go just because I was a little faster than you expected. Who taught you to fight? Was it TenSoon?"

MeLaan rolled her eyes. "Is it too late to change my mind about being happy you're alive?"

Paalm grinned at her.

"All good points," Wayne said brightly. "Settled, then?"

Paalm looked around the room. Marasi had gone pink, and was watching MeLaan out of the corner of her eye. MeLaan looked faintly chagrined, but she was leaning back, not poised for any particular disagreement. Wayne was Wayne, of course.

Nobody said anything.

Paalm's tissues thrummed.

"Waxillium," Marasi predicted, "is going to _hate_ this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~New Metals~
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lCp4ewoTqMlGae1e7h22otmdXm_CWpRY/preview?usp=sharing
> 
> The pun was too good to resist I'm afraid
> 
> Notes
> 
> -idk abt the flashback at the beginning. no reason i haven't been doing them before. dunno if i'll keep doing them. if you've got any strong opinions feel free to share em
> 
> -what's a fourth wall idk her
> 
> -So I think a thing about Paalm is that. A lot of the kandra in Era 1 are mentioned to hate the humans because they subjugated the kandra. Which fair. But I don't think Paalm does, exactly? Her actions in SoS, even if she's too willing to kill people to make them happen, are motivated out of a love of humanity— a desire to see it flourish free of what Paalm perceives (with ambiguous levels of accuracy) as Harmony's stranglehold on the world. Given the religious overtones of basically everything Sanderson writes, and the role the kandra play under Harmony, I'm inclined to see them as angelic figures (messengers and hands of god), and Paalm specifically as a Lucifer/serpent figure.
> 
> -But I was always a big snake fan
> 
> -Anyway I do think Paalm is the kind of person who, despite being kind of a bitter fucker, would still go out of her way to help, offer advice, and generally think prosocially— so that's informing a lot of how I'm choosing to characterize her, both in her stint as Lessie and now without the benefit of a role on which to trellis herself.
> 
> -also yes she makes at least one reference to being ancient per chapter this will not stop
> 
> -i never want to write procedural shit again lol


	6. I'm Fighting With Wax

Telln really didn't like shooting people.

But Lessie had been poking around in his basement for some rusting reason, and it had turned out that she was just a little too good at figuring out where he'd been hiding all those ingots. She'd found them, he'd shot her, and now she was lying on the ground, and Telln was going to have to figure out how to get out of town before Dawnshot learned his woman was dead.

He needed to hide the body, first. He picked her up, finding her heavier than he'd expected—

...There was something shining inside her. Against his better judgment, he peered closer at the wound. There was something behind the muscle, something that looked almost like—

"Excuse me," said Lessie, and Telln screamed and dropped her. She hit the ground with a solid thump, and then sat up. Telln screamed again, backing away.

"Rusts," said Lessie, fingers digging around in her back. They came out with a bloody piece of metal, which she dropped onto the ground. The tap of it striking stone was barely audible over the blood pounding in Telln's ears.

Lessie sighed. "Sorry about this. I  _ was  _ just going to take the metal back and ask you not to do it again, but I can't let that little piece of information get out of this room."

Telln had a little speed stored up. He tapped it now, leaving himself several times as fast as any human could hope to be as he bolted for the ladder.

He didn't make it.

—-

Paalm sat across from Wax, doing his best to enjoy the rocking of the carriage as it rattled along the road.

He glanced at Wax, whose eyes were roving back and forth, never stopping on Paalm for longer than they stopped on anyone else walking through the streets around them. He could see Wax's hands where they altered the line of his mistcoat, held tense and curled and one of them holding loosely to his pistol. Every so often, something metal in the carriage would rattle slightly, the mark of Wax's nervousness where it wasn't betrayed in his body language. Like his emotions were externalized into steel.

God Beyond, but he loved him.

The plan had been set into motion quickly and efficiently. Marasi had driven Paalm, Wayne, and MeLaan to Wax's house, there had been a brief argument that Paalm had heard while he waited from the car, and then he and Wax had made their way to hail a carriage that could get them out to the Second Octant, because for a variety of reasons travel by Coinshot was out. Paalm didn't mind. It meant an hour or so to talk.

Paalm had worn a different face than his usual, under the assumption that looking anything like Lessie would do very little to set Wax at ease. He looked maybe a few years younger than Wax, with pale, freckled skin, red hair, lean muscle, and a thin mustache. He hadn't changed clothes, but his current outfit had been sufficiently utilitarian to stand out less as men's clothing than women's. Somehow, despite being dressed in what would have been moderately nice clothing in the Roughs, he still blended in better than Wax in his mistcoat.

They'd been traveling for thirty minutes of that hour, now, and Wax still hadn't spoken a word. Paalm had hoped he'd give him something, because making the first overture felt inappropriate, but...he probably should have known better than to try and out-stoic Wax.

"Are you sure it's a good idea, wearing a mistcoat?" Paalm asked. He liked the voice he'd given this body, smooth and sure and with an accent that he'd picked up from Fadrex City in the old world. "It'll draw attention, and we want to be subtle."

Wax was silent for a while, and Paalm was briefly terrified that he would simply ignore him and continue on. That everything Paalm had assumed about Wax's willingness to understand that this would work was just...wrong.

"I don't want to be subtle," Wax said. "I want people to know that when they start kidnapping people in my city, that they'll face justice, even if the constabulary can't or won't find them. The mistcoat's part of that image."

His voice was clipped, rigid. But he was speaking. Paalm relaxed slightly.

He'd been like this in the Roughs. Bold. Brash, maybe. Paalm had made arguments of his own in favor of the direct approach. But he hadn't been foolhardy. The city, in many ways, honed Wax into the worst version of himself— even the worst Wax was better than most, of course. And Paalm wasn't about to say that.

"It's a good point," Paalm said. "But all the same, we're trying to be below notice, which is difficult when you stand out as much as you do. At the very least you could take it off before we get on with the business of dispensing justice."

"It's hardly of any value as a statement if nobody actually  _ sees  _ it," Wax said. "It's not as if I'll walk down the street in it."

"You could walk down the street  _ without  _ it, and save metals for when the shooting starts," Paalm countered. ""I'm currently one of the oldest living beings on the planet, and I'm the world's foremost expert on not being detected, the only person who could outdo me having spent the last three hundred years as a dog. It is my  _ professional  _ advice to  _ take off the damn mistcoat. _ Trust me, I—"

"That isn't happening," Wax said.

Wrong choice of words, admittedly. Paalm scowled at him. "That's what this is about, right?"

"Of course it's what it's about," Wax said, voice still level. "I've worked with you, and at this point, I simply have no reason to believe that this is or could be a long con."

"Long cons are overrated," Paalm said.

"More that I asked Harmony to verify what you said," Wax said. "But that doesn't mean I like you. Or trust you. Or want to be here in a carriage with you, planning out how to locate a kidnapper's hideout. I work with you for the same reason I was willing to work with my uncle to stop you. Because it's a good idea and I don't seem to have other options."

In the span of the few seconds before he responded, Paalm came up with sixteen separate retorts, each individually devastating and deconstructive of Wax's moral framework, cognitive capacity, personal ancestry, and general hygiene.

"Mmmh," said Paalm instead of any of that. "Well, whatever you think of me, the mistcoat's a bad call. I'm over a thousand years old, I've been watching people run around in the night for a very long time, and the mistcloaks weren't a good idea  _ either.  _ Just the nobles playing around and the skaa getting caught up in it. Good when you want to scare people without shooting them dead,  _ not  _ so good if you're planning to walk into a kill box!"

"Of  _ course  _ you would bring that up," Wax snapped.

"...That wasn't intentional," Paalm said. He dropped his voice a little, and was gratified when Wax was willing to lean in to hear it. "I was only referring to what we might be walking into."

"A kill box, huh?"

"We could be looking at the full array of battle metals against us, not to mention emotional Allomancy, time manipulation, and...whatever a Nicroburst is."

"Don't tell me you're worried," Wax said.

"I'm not worried for  _ me, _ " Paalm said.

"You're trying to protect me?" Wax demanded.

"And why shouldn't I?" Paalm hissed. "Or do we forget so quickly how you ended up needing my help the first time?"

"You betrayed me to Granite Joe!"

"That was  _ never  _ the plan! It's been almost twenty years and you still haven't figured that out?"

Wax sputtered. In seventeen years, Paalm had seen that happen maybe three times.

There was a pianoforte playing, sharp intense notes.

Oh, hell.

WAX:  _ Your style's subterfuge and sabotage, _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ I call it common sense! _ _   
_ _ You lack the subtlety for espionage _ _   
_ WAX:  _ That's decency _ _   
_ PAALM: _ I call it dense! _ _   
_ BOTH:  _ Seems like the two of us just can't agree _   
_ That's just how we fight differently! _

BOTH:  _ This is our song about fighting! _ _   
_ _ The tiny little things that keep us at each other's throats! _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ Understand I don't mean to be biting! _   
_ But seriously, take off the damn coat! _ _   
_ _   
_ PAALM:  _ You sit on your hands while the city dies _ _   
_ WAX:  _ It's more complex than that! _ _   
_ _ By the way, the life we had was built on lies _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ Don't be such a rusted brat. _ _   
_ BOTH:  _ We've got some issues, obviously _ _   
_ _ That's just how we fight differently! _

BOTH:  _ This is our song about fighting _ _   
_ _ The real stuff, I mean, when we're going for the throat! _ _   
_ WAX:  _ To be sure, the prospect's inviting! _   
_ But get over yourself, I'm keeping the coat! _

WAX:  _ Murders when you're so inclined! _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ Orders you hear in your mind! _

BOTH:  _ That's just how we fight differently! _

WAX:  _ Stealing faces from the dead! _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ Shooting me twice in the head! _

BOTH:  _ That's just how we fight differently! _

WAX:  _ To be fair, you saved my life _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ After all, I was your wife _

BOTH:  _ That's just how we fight differently! _

WAX:  _ Trading little sweet remarks _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ Stolen kisses in the dark… _

BOTH:  _ Uh... _

_ This is our song about fighting _ _   
_ _ The insurmountable obstacles that get each other's goats! _ _   
_ WAX:  _ But rusts, it's still so exciting _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ But fighting with you is so delighting _ _   
_ BOTH:  _ When we feel the old sparks igniting! _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ Now seriously, take off the damn coat! _

Paalm crossed his legs and arms, narrowed his eyes, and huffed. Wax slammed his hands down on his knees and huffed right back.

They glared at each other for a moment, and then Paalm went back to looking out the window.

Wax didn't. In his peripheral vision, Paalm could see Wax staring at him, looking him up and down with frank appraisal.

Wax didn't really show blushes on his face. Paalm, right now, did, and he let it stay visible rather than withdrawing the blood vessels, not bothering to control his breathing either.

Wax had looked at him like that before kissing him the first time. Before other things. Wax wasn't one to leer, but when he looked, he didn't hide it, and he focused. He made you the center of his world.

There was a rustling sound, and Paalm turned his head towards Wax in time to catch the wadded-up mistcoat being thrown at him.

"...Thank you," said Paalm. "I'll hold on to it until it's needed."

Wax looked out the window. Paalm went back to doing the same.

"...I keep looking at you," said Wax quietly, and Paalm's breathing stuttered, "out of the corner of my eye. I expect to see something, some twitch or expression or pose, to remind me of Lessie."

Paalm went very still.

"There's nothing," Wax said, without acknowledging that Paalm had spoken. "I've never seen you wear that face before. I don't recognize anything of Lessie in it, or in how you move. I don't think I've seen the face on anybody else, either."

Paalm shook his head. "I created it myself. A combination of people I've met, most of which died before your family name began. The way a face in a dream might come from somewhere. I assumed you wouldn't want me to look like Lessie, or act like her. Like I said."

"You could be someone else entirely. Someone I'd never met before today."

"I could," Paalm agreed. "Someone...hm, Emric. Emric Tacin."

"Emric Tacin," Wax repeated. "You really are the perfect actor, aren't you?"

"Can't act to save my life," Emric said with a wry grin. "Wanted to be a singer for a while."

"How'd that work out?"

"I tried out for a performance of  _ A Hero for All Ages  _ and the director told me not to quit my day job," Emric admitted. "I should probably thank the woman, of course— I've never been one to take criticism."

"What— oh," Wax said. "You're doing a bit."

Emric shrugged.

"That's very unsettling," said Wax.

Emric faded away. "...Yeah. Sorry," Paalm said. "You're right. I'm an actor. I'm a lot of other things, but...first and foremost, I'm an actor."

"So…" Wax swallowed hard, level gaze giving way to widened eyes, and Paalm's heart broke a little. "Lessie. An act."

"You...want to talk about her, then?"

"Is it different to talk about her than to talk about you?" Wax asked.

"Yes," Paalm said.

Wax was quiet for a moment. "Then yes. I'd like to talk about her."

Paalm took a deep breath. "Lessie was...an invention. But one I liked, the way an actor might come to treasure a part they played over all others."

"But an act," Wax pressed.

"But an act," Paalm repeated.

"Were there others?" Wax asked. "Acts you...enjoyed?"

"A few," Paalm said. "None where...none where," he said, breaking his gaze from Wax's to check the streets quickly, because Wax wasn't. Nobody doing anything particularly suspicious, no faces he recognized from the last time he'd looked. "You were different. The part was nothing special. Only you."

"Ah," said Wax.

"Why do you ask?" Paalm asked, already mentally kicking himself because that was simply the stupidest possible question.

"I'm trying to make conversation. Steris has been giving me lessons, and...I don't necessarily agree with her about the consistent need to be polite, but I may as well see if it's better than a long carriage ride in hostile silence."

"You used to like hostile silences," Paalm muttered.

"I've grown up a little," Wax said. "It would be nice, I suppose, to know the real Paalm. When you aren't masquerading as someone, no matter how much you like being that someone. And when you aren't homicidally insane."

"Does tend to help with introductions," Paalm said. "Although I wouldn't mention it to a Steel Inquisitor."

"You've met a lot?"

"Universally strange creatures." Paalm twirled a finger next to his head. "Too much Hemalurgy. It does things to the mind."

"...Ah," said Wax. "I can't help but notice that you're avoiding my question."

"I don't know what I'd say," Paalm admitted. "The other kandra told you about me, didn't they? I don't know what it would mean to be the real Paalm. That's part of why I came here, really. To figure out who I was."

"I was under the impression you were mostly here to become a part of my life again."

"That's...not it at all," Paalm said. "I tried the Roughs. I tried Elendel, but...I didn't really have friends. I couldn't figure out how to make any. So...I thought I'd at least talk to some people who came close to knowing me. People I spent time with long enough that I could say that I liked them, even if they hated me now, after everything. If there was something about me that you hated, that made your blood boil, then at least it was  _ something about me. _ "

Wax stared at him.

"What?" Paalm asked.

"That's sad," Wax said.

"Well, rusts, Wax, thanks for pointing  _ that  _ out," Paalm said. "I really hadn't noticed." She realized that just for a moment, she'd slipped into Lessie's voice and cadences, and forced himself back into shape, embarrassed. He hadn't made that mistake since he'd been a child.

Wax was trying very hard not to look as though he'd been affected, but Paalm could see the lines of tension in his hands. "That...wasn't what I meant. It was sad. I'm sorry that it's the case, Le— Paalm."

Paalm shrugged.

"What about...Bleeder?" Wax said. "That wasn't you? Harmony claimed you were acting as yourself."

"Harmony's a  _ child, _ " Paalm snapped, and then controlled himself. "Bleeder was someone I needed to be for what I needed to do. A...mission I gave to myself. Built out of people who could wield that purpose. The Lord Ruler. The Survivor." He'd observed the man briefly, but he'd had his own work to do. Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if the Lord Ruler had ever been willing to acknowledge the Survivor as a true threat. "Another act."

"But you said that Bleeder represented what you wanted to do," Wax pressed. "Wouldn't that be...you? In some real way? Even actors in a play bring themselves into the part. As Bleeder, you said you wanted...freedom?"

"Freedom," Paalm murmured. "Justice."

"And Lessie—" Wax  _ sputtered  _ again. "You're a man today."

The change in topic caught Paalm off-guard, and he had to take a moment to recover.

"Uh, yeah," Paalm said. "Seemed less likely to make you think I was trying to seduce you."

"Are you?"

"No," said Paalm.

"Thank you," said Wax. "So...you're a man? Or a woman?"

"I'm a kandra," Paalm said. "I'm what I need to be."

"But you have no…" Wax shrugged. "Preference? MeLaan rarely goes anywhere as a man. TenSoon wears his dog bones at all times."

"Yeah, there's really no unpacking that one," Paalm muttered.

Wax nodded. "Harmony—" Paalm winced. "—said that you were female."

"I was, at the time. Lessie was. I thought it would be easier to get into your good graces if I showed up as a pretty girl. Not so pretty as to be unattainable, but someone who would draw the eye— and make you think twice about shooting me."

"I wouldn't have shot you."

"I wasn't sure at the time," Paalm said.

"But…" Wax made a face. "Ah, I'm not good at this. But I've met people who— changed, over time, due to Bloodmaking. Because some part of their outside self didn't match their inside self. Do you have an inside self, Paalm?"

He shrugged. "It depends on what I'm doing, really. There are advantages to either. Men can get to places women can't, and can go beneath notice in ways women can't. It's not easy to be a woman."

Wax winced. "I've been told."

Paalm shrugged. "But it's not impossible. And there are things that it's easier for a woman to do. People are often more comfortable talking to women than men about certain matters, for one, and when I need someone to tell me something personal…"

Wax frowned.

"Is something wrong?" Paalm asked.

"I've never thought of it that way before," Wax said.

"Men rarely do," Paalm said.

"Though you  _ are  _ a man now," Wax said. "What does that imply about our conversation?"

"At the very least, it implies that I wasn't trying to get you to talk about anything personal," Paalm said. "I could change, if you'd prefer. Might startle our driver, though."

"I think it's alright," Wax said dryly.

"Though you  _ are  _ still frowning," Paalm noted.

"I'm just thinking about...back in the Roughs—"

Paalm controlled his features.

"All those times you disappeared to go gather information on people we were hunting. You were disguising yourself."

"Oh," said Paalm. "Yeah. Usually, yeah."

"You were cheating," Wax said, and his mustache twitched. "I'm sort of impressed."

"I wasn't— I wasn't  _ cheating! _ " Paalm protested. "It's no different than you being a Twinborn and hiding it!"

"Which you knew the moment you met me."

"Well, I…" Paalm trailed off. "...Can I joke about it? Is that...are we there?"

"We'll see," Wax said, but the corners of his mouth had turned up.

"I  _ did  _ have a dossier to work with," Paalm said, and jerked his head skyward. "But Granite Joe knew before you ever got to town. You were not  _ half  _ as subtle as you thought you were."

"Well, rusts," Wax said. "And I thought I was being so clever."

"Nobody's ever as smart as they think," Paalm said. "You survived learning it, which puts you above a lot of them. And now look at you. You might be one of the best shots I've ever met— though you  _ do  _ still need to make better use of your Allomancy."

"Working on it," Wax said with a grunt.

"I noticed. Your little maneuver with the gun last night was very impressive."

"I do try. I've been practicing, since...well, since."

"Since what?" Paalm asked worriedly.

"I'll explain later," Wax said. He held up a hand. "Promise. Let's focus on the now."

"...Yeah, alright," Paalm said, setting the thought aside.

"...Le— Paalm?" Wax said.

"Hm?"

"It's good you're not dead. And we're here."

With that utterly baffling comment, he knocked on the divider of the carriage. "Let us out, then get as far from here as you can. It may get ugly."

"Ah, it'll be fine," Paalm said. "Though you probably should get out of here."

They stepped out of the carriage.

Paalm and Wax had gone to the location closer to the Second Octant end of the line, since it was closer to Paalm's place and Wax could navigate the city by Steelpush anyway.

Moreover, Paalm's guess was that they were in the right spot.

It wasn't the nicest neighborhood— well, it wasn't really a neighborhood at all, with no houses or apartments for several blocks. It was a garden of forgotten warehouses and factories in a stage of obsolete output, the closest thing to a population a few homeless people taking advantage of the traffic along the outskirts. The whole area was a mausoleum of industry, and if Paalm had been planning an operation involving large-scale Hemalurgy of Basin citizens, he couldn't have picked a better location.

"It reminds me of the Roughs," Wax said, as he and Paalm slipped into an alleyway across the street from the industrial garden, between two run-down looking buildings of uncertain purpose. "Though the buildings are taller."

"Elendel was always just the Roughs with an extra coat of paint and better documentation," Paalm said absently, checking the rooftops for snipers. "It's places like this where it shows."

"So that part was real?" Wax asked. He was keeping an eye out too, and Paalm assumed he was letting his steel burn slowly, watching anyone bringing metal through the area.

"I hate it here," Paalm muttered. "It's like stepping into a coffin."

"They say safety lies in the grave," Wax mused. "The Roughs might be more pleasant when you can't be killed."

Paalm shot a glare at him. "Don't tell me  _ you  _ like it here. You're—" He cut himself off before he said something that would restart their argument from earlier.

"It's hard to be sure," Wax said. "I don't fit in here. But then, I didn't entirely fit in back in the Roughs, did I?"

"Yeah, yeah…"

"So I'm not sure it's the standard to use," he said, finally. "But I can do good, here, and that's all I've ever wanted. And there are advantages."

Meaning Steris, to judge by the expression on his face. Paalm sighed, and shoved the mistcoat back into Wax's hands. "Stick this under your shirt while we're scouting. See if you can't slouch a little, too, to sell the effect."

"You think it'll help?" He was already listening, though. Wonderful man.

"People see what they expect to," Paalm said, scanning the sidewalk.

"Does that apply to you as well?" Wax asked. He'd hunched over slightly, and while he was no Wayne, he at least looked a little less obvious as the lord of House Ladrian.

"I hope so," Paalm said. "Because I expect to see some rogue Set members. Do you have any cash?"

"Only a few boxings. Why?"

"Give them to me," Paalm said. "I have a plan."

"Should I trust your plans?"

"On balance, I think most of them worked out," Paalm noted.

"There was the business with Ape Manton," Wax said.

"For which I apologized, despite the fact that it wasn't my idea," Paalm said. "I do recall saying we should have stuck together on that one."

"The Fraternal Order of Pulsers?"

"Completely unfair," Paalm said. " _ Nobody  _ could have anticipated the lions. Do you remember Wayne's face?"

Wax snorted. "Do you remember  _ your  _ face?"

"It was the most genuine fear I'd felt in centuries!" Paalm said, giggling. "And there wasn't really a plan there, was there?"

"Which, if I recall, was your idea."

"Oh, bring that up, why don't you…"

"And your  _ last  _ plan didn't exactly go as...planned," Wax said.

"...I don't think that's quite fair. I said I was going to kill the governor, and I did," Paalm said shortly. "Elendel became less corrupt practically overnight."

Wax snorted.

"I'd really like to avoid bringing it up, if at all possible," Paalm admitted.

"I'm only saying, maybe you should tell me your plan?"

"It's a handful of boxings," Paalm said. "Aren't you rich?"

"I remember how you are with money."

"Then you remember I won every clip back after I had everyone convinced I'd never played cards in my life," Paalm murmured.

"And spent every clip on that new duster that fell apart the first time Destroyer threw you off."

"I still say we should've eaten that horse," Paalm said, and she could feel her grin from ear to ear. "She'd have been better use as dinner than a mount." She leaned back against the wall of the storage unit—

"...Lessie," Wax said.

"No, I'm not—" Paalm froze, and looked down at her hands, which had turned a light brown. She felt at her face. "...Ah. I...sorry. I can...try and get back, if you have a mirror—"

"It's fine," Wax said tersely. "Don't worry about it."

"Do I look basically human?" Paalm asked. "I normally make changes more— intentionally, I promise—"

"You look fine," Wax said. "Taller than Lessie was, I think."

"Oh. Good," said Paalm. "...Come on, give me the money. I know what I'm doing."

Wax sighed, and handed over a pouch of coins. "I would like to know what you're doing, if you don't mind."

"It's not obvious?" Paalm asked as she stepped out of the alleyway, Wax trailing after her. Together, they didn't look much like the two people who had gone  _ into  _ the alleyway, unless you paid very close attention— and someone paying very close attention would tell quite a bit about them.

Paalm meandered across the street, dodging traffic and occasionally letting out a grumbled swear word at a motorist as one car or another nearly clipped her. By the time she and Wax reached the other side of the road, both had a faint coating of ash and dust, joining the aesthetic theme of the area.

"Hey," Paalm said to a man propped against a warehouse, slipping her voice into an accent more appropriate to the outskirts of the city. "How are you holdin' up?"

The man raised an eyebrow at her.

"Figures," Paalm said, and handed him a boxing. "You get a lot of people comin' by here?"

"Not really," the man said, through what might have been missing teeth. "But it stays warm at night."

"Does it?" Paalm asked. "Thought the factories were out of use."

"There's—" the man froze. "...You a conner?" He glanced past her, at Wax, who was standing still and predictably intimidating.

"No," Paalm said, not particularly faking the mild disgust in her voice. "He's mute. And tall. I try not to hold it against him." She winked at Wax, who was giving her a very unamused look.

The man didn't look at ease. Paalm shrugged, dropped another boxing in the man's hand, and moved on.

Wax gave her a look. She shrugged. "You've got the money."

Wax grunted. Oh yeah. Supposed to be mute.

There was a woman with a small camp a block over, and Paalm didn't think she'd seen them. "Stay here," she said to Wax. "Keep an eye out."

Wax nodded, lagging behind. Paalm slipped through a couple alleyways, making periodic changes to her appearance, until a young pregnant woman who looked as though she'd missed most of last week's meals stepped out next to the camp.

"...Hey," Paalm said, nervously, sitting down next to her.

"Hi," said the other woman, none too pleasantly. Which, fair enough, Paalm supposed.

"Sorry," Paalm mumbled. "Just...heard this was a place to stay warm."

The other woman's face softened slightly. "Yeah. There's a factory a few blocks in that keeps its furnaces running nights."

Paalm widened her eyes hopefully.

"Hey, but listen," the woman said. "Weird stuff goes down there. Don't know what, exactly, but they're not shipping anything in or out, that I can see."

"Uhhh…"

"It's warm enough out here," the woman said. "Don't get too close."

"O-okay," Paalm said. "Yeah. I get it."

"And…" the woman looked pained. "...Look, if you need company, I don't mind talking, but—"

"O-oh. Yeah. No, I get that too," Paalm mumbled. "Sorry."

She made her way away from the woman, who would probably notice in a minute or two that her cup had been surreptitiously filled with the rest of Wax's pouch. She made her way back to Wax, rejoining him as a slightly dustier Lessie-alike. "There's a factory in the area that keeps running at nights. There are furnaces there, and they keep the block warm for everyone living here."

"Furnaces for disposing of bodies?"

"It seems probable," Paalm said. "See anything?"

"Someone's on the rooftop," Wax said. "Carrying a lot of metal. A Coinshot, unless there's some new way to leap between buildings that nobody told me about."

"Rusts," Paalm said.

"Puts us on the right track," Wax pointed out. "I imagine he knows I'm armed, but I haven't been Pushing on anything, so there would be no reason to suspect I'm anything more than a citizen with a few guns."

"How many guns  _ are  _ you carrying?" Paalm asked.

"...Several," Wax said. "You?"

"Just the one," she admitted. "And I left my crossbow at home, too. I didn't really anticipate today being a day for shooting."

"You have...six shots?"

"I have extra ammunition," she protested. " _ And  _ an aluminum skeleton.  _ And  _ I'm over a thousand years old."

"You're over a thousand years old, and you brought  _ one  _ gun to a shootout."

"Give me one of yours, if it bothers you so much."

"...You'll be fine," Wax said. "Which way?"

Paalm pointed, and they went.

The block was large, the buildings on it tall and cramped. They pressed up against the sides of the buildings as they moved, so that someone would need to be obviously peering down into the alleyway to spot them.

"Reminds me of home," Paalm muttered.

"The Homeland?" Wax asked.

Paalm shook her head. "Never spent a lot of time there. I meant Luthadel. In the Empire."

"That was home for you?"

"Yeah. The whole city was set up to make you feel as small as possible. Ash rained from the air. You never knew just who was watching you." Paalm didn't look up, but the effort of being intentionally unobservant sent a prickle down the back of her neck. "You're still burning steel, right?"

"Slowly," Wax said. "Coinshot's gone, I think. We're following him."

"Ah. ...Good." Paalm glanced left and right instinctively, even though all there was to see was wall. "...You could help them, you know."

"Who?"

"The people living here. If this factory turns out to be a site for a Hemalurgic harvesting organization, and we shut it down, this place stops being warm at night," Paalm said. "You're a house lord, aren't you? You must be able to do more for the local population than hand out a few boxings on the sidewalk."

"I've been working with Steris on trying to take my duties more seriously," Wax said. "I'll talk to her about this as well."

"Oh. Well, good," Paalm said.

"I don't remember you being so civic-minded out in the Roughs, you know," Wax said.

"Things were simpler there," Paalm said. "The world wasn't so...connected. When it was, when one person had their fingers in enough pies to really start controlling things— well, if we didn't like how they were using that power, we could usually just shoot 'em."

"Was it like that in the Final Empire, too?" Wax asked. "Simple?"

"In its own way. The nobles had their intrigues, the skaa their unrest, the Terris their schemes...but it was never more than a shadow play for the Lord Ruler. There's a simplicity in knowing that only one authority really matters."

"Until it didn't anymore."

"Until it didn't," Paalm agreed. "I still don't understand quite how it happened. He could have killed everyone in the world and started over, if the urge had taken him." Paalm looked around at her surroundings. "...I guess, in one way, that's what happened."

"Minus the bit where everyone had to die," Wax said.

"...Yes," Paalm admitted. "But, uh, enough about me, please. What's the plan here?"

"You don't have one?"

"I have several. But I was never so great at working with a partner."

"Speaking of, we should probably split up," Wax said. "You're keeping your weapons in your body, right? You won't register to a Coinshot as carrying any metals, so if I'm moving around, he might not even be aware that you're there. I'll go ahead, you bring up the rear. If someone tries to sneak around or I get cornered..."

"Well…" Rusts. Good idea, actually. "Yeah. Let's do it."

"Mistcoat on?" Wax asked.

Paalm smiled. "Mistcoat on."

Wax swung the mistcoat around himself, slipping it on in one motion, and ran into the labyrinth of buildings.

Paalm watched him go. Not for any reason other than making sure he didn't immediately get shot. Certainly.

Working alone, she had a few options that she was more hesitant to use around other people, particularly Wax. Paalm tuned her senses, magnifying her hearing and sight, dampening smell, and introducing a trick she'd picked up off a rattlesnake. It made her look very odd, but it gave her a sense of anything giving off heat in the immediate area— for example, humans hiding in buildings or around corners.

She gave Wax ten more seconds, then moved her gun closer to the surface of her skin and hurried after him.

Wax would be moving almost silently, footsteps lightened by Feruchemy. Paalm, for her part, pulled off her shoes and tucked them into her calves, extending her stride and moving on the balls of her feet like a cat.

She could hear quiet voices from a side path. She darted down it, focusing on the sound.

"—Colette said she saw a guy coming in," said one voice. "Lot of guns. And someone else unarmed."

That was...unsettling. Paalm checked herself for visible metals, found nothing. Had she been spotted?

"I don't know what you think she can  _ see, _ " came the other voice. Two men, one a little taller or broader or just generally better-resonant. "Haven't you looked at her lately?"

"Don't. Gives me the collywobbles, it does," muttered the first voice. "Maybe it's like how blind folks hear better?"

"Pretty sure that's a myth, or you'd have better eyesight or something." A third voice, more nasal and with an air of suppressed mirth.

"Why's that?"

"'Cause you smell terrible!" Laughter, the sound of a half-hearted punch to the shoulder.

Paalm slipped through a gap between two storage units barely wide enough to accommodate her, coming out behind the three voices, which were heading now in the direction Wax had gone. She could track them by heat now, even through a blockade of crates.

"If one of 'em's unarmed, you think he's a Misting?"

"Hope so."

"What difference does it make to  _ you? _ " came the nasal voice. "We're the ones who have to fight him if he is, and none of us are anywhere close to the first on the list to get spikes."

"Yeah, but...if we kill him, you don't think Uma will bump us up a few places? I could use being a Thug."

"You're already a thug. What do you think this job is?"

"Or I could be a Leecher! Did you hear, that guy, uh...Dran? Yeah, he got fed up with the whole thing, so…" The man made a squelching noise.

Well. That sure was a confession right there.

Paalm crawled through the crates, practically slithering as she did, and waited for them to come past. Three men. One big and muscular, one small and holding twin pistols, and one narrow and twitchy-looking.

She slipped a hand out of the crates, holding a gun and an eye, and put a bullet through the small one's back.

She withdrew back into the crates as the other two men spun wildly, looking for the shooter. Neither was  _ dumb—  _ they were both holding themselves against concealment. They just hadn't found her.

The big man was approaching her hiding place, step by cautious step. Paalm looked him up and down.

_ Hitch in left leg. Right-handed, left hand marginally stronger but less trustworthy. _

_ That'll do for a start. _

She burst from the crates, ducking to the right as she charged the man.

_ Angle to avoid instinctive jab. _

She turned sideways, perpendicular to the man. A fist passed by where her cheek would have been as she leaned back slightly.

_ Upper guard effective. Disrupt footing. _

Paalm took a quick step, extending her right leg to place it where the man's left leg was going. Their knees collided, which hurt the man a great deal more. He tripped, stumbling just past Paalm, arms windmilling briefly for balance.

_ Incapacitate. _

Paalm hit him in the collarbone with a left hook. The bone broke, the man howled in pain, and Paalm swept his other leg out from under him, planting him on his face. Alive, but with a dislocated knee and a broken collarbone, certainly not rejoining the fight.

Paalm turned her attention to the other man, who hadn't quite joined the melee. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

The man grunted, and drew a knife from his jacket, thrusting it at Paalm's ribs.

A knife was no more dangerous to her than anything else. There was no likelihood that the man knew the first thing about Hemalurgy. He was a hired thug, and he wasn't even a good knife fighter. Paalm could have handled him in seconds.

_ Drop it! _

She caught his wrist, squeezing hard enough to crack bone.

_ Drop it! _

She used her other hand to hit him at the elbow, breaking the joint.

_ Drop it drop it drop it! _

Then again at the upper arm. Another crack of bone.

A bullet shot by her head, drilling a hole in the man's skull, and he dropped. Paalm let him go, staring down at the corpse, breathing heavily as she tried to reconcile the events of the last few seconds.

Wax was running up next to her. He'd handled whatever opposition he'd faced, apparently. Paalm turned her features human again.

"What was  _ that? _ " Wax demanded.

It took Paalm a moment to realize what Wax was actually referring to. "I've done a lot of fighting," she said. "And...aluminum bones. Makes a lot of things easier."

"We could've used that out in the Roughs."

"What do you think I got up to when you weren't looking?" Paalm said, forcing a grin onto her face.

"I'm suddenly not sure I want to know," Wax said, and his own grin looked...not quite forced? "Can't believe you got the first bullets in."

"You're getting slow," Paalm said lightly.

"But I'm the one who found our factory." He gestured. "The Coinshot went in, and she was carrying something. Someone, I think."

"Her name's Colette, and I'm pretty sure she's carrying the operation's Leecher," Paalm reported. "Who is about to be spiked for his abilities, so someone with a little more loyalty can make use of them."

"Sounds like the sort of thing we should be preventing," Wax said.

"Sounds like," Paalm murmured.

A groan from behind her reminded her that the man she'd fistfought was still alive. She turned back to him. "You're not going to be a problem, are you?"

He groaned again.

"Good. You can stay here for the constables to talk to," Wax said.

"I'm not telling them nothing," he mumbled through a split lip.

Wax stepped forward. Paalm stopped him. "I'll take this one." She leaned down towards the man, putting her face into his field of vision. "I think...you should change your mind."

And she made her skin transparent.

His eyes widened, and his face lost color. "...Y-you're— I'm not afraid of one of Harmony's hands."

Paalm twitched. "I'm not Harmony's. And I think it's quite admirable not to be afraid." She leaned closer, dropping her voice into a whisper. "But if you aren't willing to talk, your bones might tell a different story once I've sucked the memories out of your marrow."

He gulped.

"Stay," Paalm said, firmly. "I've gotten your scent now. If you don't, I'll find you." She unbent herself and rejoined Wax. "There. We've got an informant. Now let's deal with the rest of them."

"We should find a new way forward," Wax said. "I doubt nobody heard those gunshots."

"I think they know we're both here anyway," Paalm said. "Somehow, the Coinshot was able to detect me."

"You said you weren't—"

"I  _ wasn't, _ " Paalm snapped. "I don't know what happened, and I don't like any of the possibilities. But they know we're both here, so we should stick together from this point onward."

They made their way deeper into the maze, hurrying now. Once they were out of earshot, Wax spoke.

"...So can kandra actually do any of the stuff you just said?"

"Pretty much not at all," Paalm said brightly. "But he doesn't know that."

"How come you never bluffed this well when we all played cards?"

"Ah, it wouldn't have been fair to you humans," Paalm drawled. "Voices coming from that way."

They made a quick turn, and Wax placed a hand on Paalm's back.

For just a moment, her step hitched. He'd always done that back in the Roughs, just in case he needed to travel by Coinshot and bring her with. The motion had felt instinctive more than intentional, but he wasn't moving his hand.

The gentle grip turned into a push when Wax moved and Paalm forgot to. Biting back a curse, she kicked herself back into motion.

"Voices, again." Paalm pointed, and they changed direction.

The walls were getting closer together, the voices more jumbled. They were getting close, or getting trapped.

"This way," Wax said.

"People coming from that way," Paalm said hurriedly. "Most have guns." She tugged at Wax's arm, and they changed directions down a narrow gap between two buildings. "We're running out of time before we get cornered."

More footsteps, getting faster every second. Paalm could hear the clicking of hammers being drawn back.

"Funny," Wax said, "How you can be so old, and miss something very obvious."

"That being?" Paalm said.

"I don't get cornered."

Paalm realized what was going to happen seconds before it did. She tightened her grip on Wax, and suddenly they were both shooting skywards, air whipping against them.

They landed on the roof of a wide, squat building, at the edge of a wide clearing surrounding a building festooned with smokestacks, none currently smoking. A road led out from it to the avenue.

"This is where we were headed?" Paalm said.

"Seems likely," Wax said.

Paalm scanned the clearing. It was coated in ash, presumably from the factory. There were a few crates providing something resembling cover, but it was a long run over mostly open ground to get to one of the factory doors, not to mention whatever time it took to open them.

Which was a real problem, because there were ten or fifteen people with guns between Paalm and Wax and that door, and standing at the door was a middle-aged woman pointing at Wax.

"Coinshot!" she called, and ducked into the building.

"Seeker," said Paalm.

"Your power of observation," said Wax exhaustedly, "is astounding."

"You're thinking about that day too, huh?" Paalm asked.

"It's hard not to," Wax said. "We made a good team."

"I did all the work on that one," Paalm said, grinning.

"What was it like being Lessie that day?" Wax asked. "Having all that experience at your fingertips, and having to keep me alive through the whole thing?"

"Like watching a complete idiot," Paalm said, "but a very, very endearing one, with a spark of cleverness that I thought would be interesting to see pay off. And look how that worked out."

"Worth it?"

"Lord Ruler, yes."

"Want to see if we still make a good team?" Wax asked.

"Think we can take 'em?"

"I'll let you count those three from before as yours, even," Wax said.

There was a guitar playing. Or...something like a guitar, but much stranger, with notes that weren't separate.

"Generous of you," Paalm said. "Ready?"

"Let's go."

And they leapt from the roof.

WAX:  _ I have to say it's weird to have you back here with me _ _   
_ _ Since you left, when I've gone to sleep, it's you I see _

Wax went high, and Paalm went low.

She hit the ground, rolling to her feet, as all around her hammers clicked and guns were aimed.

She didn't feel Wax's Steelpush, because every piece of metal she wore had been embedded in her. But she could see the effects all around her, like a sudden increase in gravity.

One person wasn't dropping their weapon or even twitching. Paalm sighted down on her.

Wax, after the learning curve, had turned out to be a substantially better shot than she was. With a gun, anyway— Paalm had grown up with longbows, and Wax had never taken to arrows.

But there were advantages that came with practice, and one of them was accounting for enemy Allomancers. Paalm aimed slightly higher than she intended to hit, fired, and the bullet arced into the woman's chest.

WAX:  _ Everything about you leaves me all twisted up inside _ _   
_ _ I learned to live without you, after all the times you— _

More bullets rained down— just because nobody else could shoot didn't mean Wax couldn't. Several shooters dropped as Wax landed lightly, the direction of his Push changing from downwards to outwards, bowling the survivors off their feet.

"Died?" Paalm hoped.

"Not where I was going," Wax said.

"Ouch."

Wax dashed to the nearest crate to refresh his steel. Paalm charged, leaping over the same create, tackling someone as he tried to get around the cover to Wax. The man's head ended up between Paalm's kneecap and the ground, and Paalm grabbed his gun, opening fire on the others attempting to get around the crate.

WAX:  _ But I can't deny the thrill _ _   
_ _ Or that I get a little chill _   
_ And when there's bullets flying _ _   
_ _ It's so very edifying! _ _   
_ _ Ooh! _

_ All we need is some adrenaline, and this is our song about fighting! _ _   
_ _ Powdersmoke is the best medicine, 'cause this is our song about fighting! _ _   
_ _ You can call it hypermasculine, or call it cliché _ _   
_ _ But battlefields can make the worst times okay _ _   
_ _ Yeah, couples therapy is just a gunshot away, 'cause this is our song about fighting! _ _   
_ _ Ooooh, oooh! _

"Eight," Paalm said.

"Four," said Wax, "but I'm the reason you didn't just get torn to pieces."

"Way too late to pick up that count again, cravat."

PAALM:  _ I didn't think I knew how to come back again _ _   
_ _ I know I left you behind, to keep the pain _

Paalm shot someone as she grabbed for the aluminum gun that had fallen to the ground, then bolted forward to grab it herself. Wax went the other direction, both guns barking.

PAALM:  _ But you're the pillar, that holds up who I am _ _   
_ _ The linchpin spike at the center of my hemagram _

It was like the last two years hadn't happened. The two of them were a single person in multiple locations, eyes everywhere and gunfire covering each point where one of them became briefly vulnerable.

PAALM:  _ But I also get that thrill _ _   
_ _ And I know you feel that chill _ _   
_ _ And when there's bullets flying _ _   
_ _ It's a big step up from crying! _ _   
_ _ Ooh! _

_ Don't need my own identity, 'cause this is our song about fighting! _ _   
_ _ Violence is my serenity, 'cause this is our song about fighting! _ _   
_ _ We're working together and it blows off stress _ _   
_ _ So everything is perfect here, more or less, _ _   
_ _ I've got no underlying issues to address, 'cause this is our song about fighting! _ _   
_ _ Oooh, oooh! _

"Nine!" Paalm called.

"Eight!" Wax called back.

WAX:  _ I've got your back _

Paalm came out from behind a crate to find two guns pointed at her. A series of shots took out her legs, and she stumbled, but the two firing on her dropped.

PAALM:  _ And I've got yours _

Paalm twisted her body one hundred-eighty degrees and took out the man aiming at Wax from behind.

WAX:  _ This is healthy, right? _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ Uh...sure. _

Suddenly, nobody was shooting. The smell of powder and ash and death lingered, but the absence of sound was deafening in and of itself.

"Ten," Paalm said.

"Ten," Wax replied.

They made their way across the battlefield back to back just in case.

BOTH:  _ This can be our aphrodisiac, 'cause this is our song about fighting! _ _   
_ _ We're not a pair of maniacs, this is just our song about fighting! _ _   
_ WAX:  _ We're getting more in sync with every shot _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ Well, everybody knows that girls with guns are hot _ _   
_ WAX:  _ This might be maladjusted. _ _   
_ PAALM:  _ Oh, clearly not _ _   
_ __ It's just our song about fighting!

The music faded away, leaving Paalm with a flutter in her heart and a vague sense of confusion. That had been...she'd read that right, hadn't she?

Wax was married. He hadn't wanted to see her before today. But he was pressed up against her, the two of them watching over each other's shoulders, just like the old days.

"I go first," Paalm said. "Being unkillable and all."

"Fine by me."

Paalm flung open the door, and was promptly shot in the chest.

"Careful!" she called to Wax as he slipped in behind her, his steel bubble making her gun jerk in her hand as he deflected a second shot.

For a moment, her mind was on the bullet and on making sure she hadn't just been stabbed with anything Hemalurgic. It took her a moment to process why Wax had let out a strangled cry.

The room had been turned into an abattoir.

The door they'd entered through was on one end of a long, rectangular room lit by gaslamp. There was a door on both sides of their end of the room, in fact, a row of tool-laden shelves between the two doors. At the far end of the room was another row of shelves, behind which Paalm could see what looked like an inactive furnace. There was an assembly line that stretched out from the mouth of the furnace, around the shelves, and across the center of the room, and on that assembly line, in the center of the room, were two corpses surrounded by what looked like all the blood in their body.

The Coinshot, Colette, stood over the bodies, not even looking as she fired behind herself. She was tall, muscular, with hair that lay lank and stringy, like she hadn't been taking care of it. The Seeker was covering her, firing almost without pause. Paalm took another bullet in the shoulder, and that one almost hurt.

Wax was forming a bubble, aiming to shoot back, and both his guns leapt from his hands.

Oh,  _ rusts. _

Something skidded under Paalm's foot. She'd stepped on a bullet, and it was being Pulled out from under her. She stumbled, and the bullet reversed course mid-flight, flying towards Wax. He grunted, and Paalm's heart stuttered, but he was still in motion.

The bodies—

No,  _ body,  _ Paalm realized, as the one on the bottom started to move. She'd been stupid. They'd walked in on Hemalurgy. Of course one was alive. It was hard to tell while he was covered in blood, but he might have been Terris, tall and willowy. He rolled off the assembly line and hit the ground, looking a little stunned.

Paalm raised her gun. No Allomancy on that, it was embedded in her—

The gun was jerked to one side as the bullet flew free of it, striking Colette in the back with a metallic ping. Rusts, the woman wasn't even  _ looking,  _ focusing instead on helping the newly Hemalurgically-gifted person to his feet, dragging him towards the shelves.

The Seeker was still firing, and Paalm was becoming very sick of getting shot. Colette was Pushing and Pulling every piece of metal in the room with wild abandon, turning the factory into a storm of weapons.

"Cover!" shouted Wax.

"Hadn't figured that out, thanks!"

Wax and Paalm ducked behind the shelves as bullets and other metal flew past them. They pressed up against each other, speaking over their shoulders, guns pointed in opposite directions.

"Hurt?" Paalm asked.

"Nothing that won't mend," said Wax. "You?"

"Kandra."

"She's made herself a Coinshot and a Lurcher," Wax said. Paalm could feel the speech in the movements of his back muscles. "And she's  _ good  _ at it. Why is it that nobody ever trips on their own new Allomancy?"

"It's a quality of the Hemalurgy," Paalm said quietly. "It doesn't grant  _ mastery, _ but it's intuitive. And I think she was a Lurcher to begin with. Steel is far easier to get the hang of."

"Do you want to handle her, then?" Wax teased.

"I'll leave her to you," Paalm drawled. "Seeker's mine. She won't see me coming."

Wax huffed out a short laugh. "Mind giving me a hand with a Steel Diamondback?"

Delight sent a bubble of warmth up from Paalm's core. "You remembered."

"I never forgot."

There was the  _ clink  _ of something small and metal hitting the ground. Paalm slammed a heel down onto it, and braced herself as Wax stored weight, Pushing on whatever he'd just dropped to launch himself away from her like a striking snake. She saw him pulling some sort of hook out of his pocket, catching the edge of a shelf and turning his airborne dash into a sweeping arc, swerving around to swoop across the room.

Okay, so he really had been practicing. Not bad.

Paalm sharpened her ears, listening for the sound of footfalls under the periodic gunshots coming from past the shelves, where Wax was fighting. The Seeker was getting closer. Paalm's heart pounded.

Paalm flung herself out from behind the shelf, realigning bones and muscle to skitter across the ground on all fours. She was under fire from the second she emerged from cover, but the first two shots went well above her head, and by the time the Seeker had readjusted her aim, Paalm had covered half the distance between them.

The third shot hit her in the back.

Paalm crumpled to the ground. The Seeker took a cautious step closer. Paalm guessed she'd be burning bronze to detect whether Paalm was faking her death. Fortunately, it didn't detect kandra.

A fourth bullet hit her in the head, scraping away a tablespoon's worth of skin and muscle as it buried itself in her skull. Paalm didn't twitch, but it was a close thing.

Rude.

The Seeker frowned. Leaned closer.

Had she heard the sound of the bullet not coming out the other side of Paalm's head? Was she the recipient of the murdered Tineye's power?

The Seeker sighed and turned back towards Wax, and Paalm lunged for her.

The woman was fast, and reacted the moment Paalm moved, before Paalm thought she'd made a sound. Definitely a Tineye then, and maybe a Pewterarm as well or maybe she was just well-trained and extremely competent, but Paalm's first bullet shot over her head as she ducked before Paalm could even finish aiming. Embarrassing.

But this could at least be an  _ interesting  _ fight. Paalm darted towards her, and she ducked, tackling Paalm around the midsection, bearing her to the ground. Solid form. It would be harder to shoot her at this close, and a grapple was more about who could inflict more pain on the other. Someone burning tin could hold out through a lot, sometimes even better than someone burning pewter if they were clever about it.

Well, nobody was perfect. Shame. This had almost been fun.

The Seeker pinned Paalm's gun hand to the ground, her free hand scrabbling for her eye. Paalm let her, withdrawing the nerves from the area as fingers dug in.

Then she extended the spare flesh of her eyelid to catch the Seeker's hand in a vice grip.

The Seeker screamed. Understandable, really. Paalm stuffed her free hand into her mouth up to the wrist, blocking the trachea with extended fingers. The Seeker tried to grab it and pull it free, and found that her other hand was likewise immobilized by Paalm having dislocated her wrist entirely and bent every finger backwards, her flesh ribboning out into thousands of minute, skin-piercing tendrils to hook the Seeker's hand in place.

Paalm's legs and arms dislocated as well, the bones becoming scaffolding for whips of muscle. She could  _ feel  _ the Seeker's arm break as she pushed against it, wrapping her limbs around her, cocooning her in flesh.

The Seeker's struggles were getting weaker. Paalm had cut off the blood traveling to her brain, and the woman was desperately burning tin just to keep herself conscious. She was running out of metal, Paalm suspected.

Paalm hastened the process along by contracting every muscle in her body, breaking the Seeker's spine in four places.

Paalm waited until she felt the Seeker's heart stop beating before she let go, reattaching herself to her bones and shrugging her shape back into that of a human. She stood up, brushing away blood and other fluids.

There was a gunshot from where Wax was dueling the Lurcher. Paalm tensed, then untensed as she heard Wax's voice—

"Leecher!"

Lord Ruler.

Paalm sprinted in the direction of the fight, restoring her missing eye as she went and grabbing the Seeker's gun, checking it for ammunition. Two bullets left, which should be sufficient.

"Hey!" she called.

Two people came around the corner of the shelf, neither of them Wax, and both moving very quickly.

The Coinshot rocketed towards her, maybe pairing a Push and Pull to double her speed, Leecher held tightly in her arms.

Paalm leveled her gun.

The Push against it nearly knocked her off her feet, but she'd expected it and braced, and the Coinshot was midair. Her momentum was diverted and she skidded along the ground, dropping the Leecher—

There was a sudden flicker, both of them were standing, and two shots ripped through Paalm's stomach and neck. She stumbled back, recovering to find the Leecher staring at her with naked shock in his expression, and the Coinshot with a face that—

For a moment, Paalm thought that the woman was wearing thick spectacles, because the alternative was three hundred years impossible. But the woman's eyes were gone, pierced by spikes of steel the width of coins.

Paalm wondered if her expression looked as shocked as the Leecher's, right now, both of them looking at anachronisms.

"Faceless Immortal," the Leecher whispered. "We have to go."

...The Leecher didn't  _ know _ , then, just how vulnerable she was to him. That was an advantage.

Paalm raised her gun, fired—

Another flicker, and the two were elsewhere, the bullet having simply missed.

She'd seen that before, when they'd recovered from their fall. One of them was burning bendalloy— and the Leecher was reacting too fast. Pewter, or zinc Feruchemy, or  _ just paranoia—  _ Rusts, she was out of practice at fighting people with multiple abilities.

There was a sound of tearing metal, and the shelf further from the door ripped itself free of its moorings, sliding at terrifying speed towards the two Allomancers. Wax was braced behind it, steel reignited and tapping iron.

The shelf spun and skidded as the Coinshot Pushed one side of it, Pulling the other. With its position relative to Wax shifted, it went wide, and Wax lifted his guns and opened fire.

Another flicker and every shot missed. It  _ had  _ to be paired abilities— nobody could think faster than a bullet. Paalm recovered her senses and added the Seeker's last bullet to the mix, but the two had been in motion before the bendalloy bubble had dropped, and they were airborne, leaping over the bullet, angling for the door.

"Wax—" she started.

"No time!" Wax called as he shot past.

Paalm bolted after him, funneling muscle and blood to her legs. She couldn't burn pewter, but she could keep her top speed for longer than any ordinary human, and even if she wasn't as fast as a Coinshot in flight she was still very, very fast.

She burst out of the warehouse after the others, and someone caught her by the shoulder as she did.

For just a moment, Paalm froze. If it was the Leecher, she was dead.

She didn't die, but the person holding onto her had a moment to adjust his grip, wrapping some sort of fabric around her throat. She felt something cold against her temple, her arms twisted behind her back.

It would have been easier than anything to tear the man to pieces. His hold on her relied on the fact that if she tried to break free, she'd dislocate one or both shoulders, which Paalm doubted she'd even notice doing.

But as her sharp exhalation caught Wax's attention and he spun, gun raised, she realized that this might be something helpful.

Then Wax froze. His gun was pointed at her— well, not quite at her. Paalm could track the path of the bullet, just past her ear and through the head of the man holding onto her.

"Wax. Shoot h—" The man gripped her tighter, with force he probably assumed would constrict her throat enough to keep her from speaking. Paalm rolled her eyes, but trailed off.

Wax's aim was perfectly steady, but his eyes weren't. Gun trained exactly where it needed to be, he still wasn't firing.

_ A bullet won't even hurt me if you  _ do  _ miss, Wax. Come on… _

"You're him, aren't you?" the man asked. "Waxillium Dawnshot. This is a pretty exciting moment for me."

Wax wasn't going to shoot.

Paalm sighed, detached a few ribs from her spine, rotated them inside herself, and stabbed them out of her back. Once. Twice. Ten times.

The man dropped to the ground, blood welling at the corner of his mouth, his stomach and chest a mess of wounds. Nobody she recognized; just someone who had been waiting outside and too cowardly (or clever) to join the shootout earlier.

Wax stared at her, open-mouthed.

"Kandra," she said ruefully.

Still nothing.

"I'm okay, Wax," Paalm said. "We should go after the Coinshot, if you didn't get her already."

Wax shook his head. "She's probably gone by now. I saw her grab the Leecher and fly out, and she had a good head start."

"Rusts. She'll be harder to track down."

"We can bring this to the attention of the constabulary," Wax said. "They'll have a harder time ignoring this much blood."

"Mmm," said Paalm, skeptically.

Wax still hadn't moved. Paalm approached him. "Hey, Wax. Look. I'm fine. Not even a little hurt."

He didn't move to meet her. "...I'm glad."

She stepped closer to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. I'm okay. Nothing's going to take me away again."

She smiled up at him. He looked down at her, face impassive, eyes bright. His hand fluttered at his side.

She slipped her arm around him, bringing herself closer. He smelled of sweat, and tanned leather, and dust. She could feel the pulse of his blood in his skin. The shifts of musculature. He was so alive, so real.

He placed a hand at her face, cupping her jaw. His breath was warm.

She'd assembled a heart, and it pulsed faster as she moved.

"Paalm," he said, softly. The first time he'd called her by her name without accidentally saying a different one, or flinching.

"Wax, I'm more than a thousand years old— I've done so many things— the only one I have ever  _ wanted  _ to do was love you," Paalm whispered. She smiled at him, and leaned up.

He held her in place, keeping her from closing the last few inches between them. "Don't."

"Wax—"

" _ Don't, _ " he said.

She froze. Her heart was moving even faster, her own breaths suddenly uneven.

She could see tears at the corners of his eyes, tracing their way out. Paalm hadn't given herself tear ducts, opting for secondary membranes to protect the eyes. She wanted them, now. More than that, she wanted to have always had them, to cry because she felt it and not because there was some purpose in it.

"Lessie was the most alive I've ever been," she said, feeling the hint of desperation in her voice. "The most that any of it has ever mattered. I know that I lied, but at the time, I thought I had no choice, and I  _ do  _ now, and I choose you. Please, let me back in."

"I'm married," Wax said, voice even, but tears spilling down his face. "It's real. I didn't think it would be, at first. But she's...incredible. And I love her."

"But what about me?" Paalm asked. "You loved me."

"I did. I do. But then I buried you twice," Wax said. "Once as Lessie, and then again as Paalm. I can't do this again. I don't have the strength."

"You do," Paalm said. "You're the strongest person, the  _ best _ person I've ever known, and I've known so many. The Lord Ruler himself didn't have your will, Harmony your kindness."

Wax shook his head. "I'm sorry. Can you get back to your place on your own?"

Subtlety dropped away. "Wax, I came back here for you," Paalm pleaded, holding onto him with everything she had. "Without you, I'm nobody. No face, no goals, no self."

"I'm sorry," he repeated. He detached her and stepped away, dropping a bullet casing. "Goodbye, Paalm."

"Wax, there's—"

He shot into the sky.

Paalm crumpled to the ground and sobbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe try tinder, Paalm?  
> —-  
> ~Song About Fighting~
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/16t62j_jxwgDwerJaQ6nYYoJwu0PLPW1z/preview?usp=sharing
> 
> ~Also The Song About Fighting~
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dG3CrubzUkobhAYOOO0B_nt7MIHrkrqb/preview?usp=sharing
> 
> idk if the references for these two are so obvious. First one's maybe more so.
> 
> —-  
> -this chapter was a lot longer than expected or intended. That's what I get for trying to pack emotional development and a dramatic set piece battle into one installment  
> -the songs are in this new format now I think. It's feels more readable and if it's a little off-kilter so is Paalm.  
> -Wax is bi probably. I don't like "shapeshifter makes people question their sexuality" when it's a gag and Wax and Miles definitely had a thing anyway so Paalm's just kind of way off base with assuming being a woman was necessary to seduce him.  
> -Paalm gets to be cool for very short periods of time and principally if it involves her core skillset of murder and espionage. I feel pretty justified in the fact that she's of comparative competence to Wax in this regard— she's clearly an effective fighter when we see her in Shadows of Self.  
> -I don't know if the "Hemalurgy granting some intuitive understanding of the metal" thing is true but Paalm picked up coinshotting in all of five seconds (after almost certainly at least several hundred years of not having any practice), and I like the idea that part of the spiritweb theft involves the understanding of how to use it.


	7. A Short Interlude

Marasi sometimes wondered what it said about her, that she could look at over a dozen corpses, some rather grotesquely deceased, and consider the causes of death before considering the rising of her gorge.

She'd felt vaguely off-kilter still, and wished she hadn't parted ways with Wayne and MeLaan earlier. She'd gone with them to check on the other possible base of operations for the kidnappers, an abandoned warehouse by the canal, and they'd found the Nicroburst and the Soother both, who hadn't been in the middle of anything particular but had been sufficiently startled to see a constable that things had gone almost immediately downhill.

The standoff had been a brief one, but both suspects had vanished after an extremely intense jolt of emotional Allomancy had mostly failed, still leaving Wayne stunned, MeLaan in a vague shock, and Marasi deeply rattled despite her aluminum helmet. In the aftermath, with no bodies nor blood nor anything that would be considered admissible as evidence, Wayne and MeLaan had consequently decided to go get utterly hammered.

Marasi had felt professionally responsible to at least pay a visit to the other crime scene, and in any case the idea of going and getting drunk with MeLaan, right now, with Wayne there, felt like—

It didn't feel great. Not that getting drunk with MeLaan without Wayne would be, not that not getting drunk with MeLaan would be, not that being here while MeLaan and Wayne got drunk together was—

She was here and that was the end of it and the two of them could get home by themselves for all she cared.

She'd been greeted by a plainclothes officer who had been patrolling the area and heard gunshots from the street, taken a report from Waxillium, and then gotten from the one survivor of the shootout.

"He'd lost his copper, in my, ah...professional opinion," said Officer Driars a bit uncomfortably. Driars was short and squat and looked like he had been punched in the face many, many times, and after listening to him talk Marasi was starting to understand why.

The survivor had been escorted away by now, of course, and Marasi would need to talk to the Second Octant precinct if she wanted to get anything more out of him. And Driars had been going on at length already about just how untrustworthy and insane the man was, which would make it all the more difficult for her to get access.

"I'm not sure if I agree, and I would like to speak to him when I can," Marasi said.

"If you insist," Driars sniffed. "The man keeps muttering about Faceless Immortals."

So Paalm had been here. That explained the dead man with the broken arm, which didn't seem very much like Wax's style. And then there were the bodies in the factory. The bled-out man, and the woman who looked like she'd been strangled and beaten to death simultaneously. Marasi wondered where she'd disappeared to, or if she was still around, observing.

Marasi opened her mouth to say something about the local kandra.

"Captain Colms?" Driars asked.

"What is it?" Marasi still wasn't quite used to the title. It was nice to get some proper respect, even if it was from this twit, but it still threw her for a loop every time she heard it from the mouth of someone who, she had a feeling, would have been perfectly content to snidely condescend to her if he'd known her as a constable.

"When we were searching the bodies, we found...this in the woman with the broken spine." He held up something small that he'd wrapped in multiple layers of blood-soaked paper, unwrapping it to reveal a short spike made of a reddish metal.

Marasi's heart sank.

"Is it something you've seen before?" Driars asked.

"It is." More of what she'd started calling Trell's metal. The metal that Paalm had used to become Metalborn. So Paalm's theory about the missing Allomancers being taken for Hemalurgy had panned out. "Does it match the wound in the man with the hole in him?"

Driars nodded. "How'd you know?"

"Just a hunch," Marasi lied. "And...well, it  _ is  _ covered in blood."

Driars nodded again. "Wax— Lord Ladrien," he turned puce, and made a face. Not a fan of Waxillium, then, or possibly nobles as a broad concept. "He said that it or...something like it was used to murder the man on the assembly line."

"It seems likely," Marasi said.

"Then he tried to take it," Driars sighed. "Like it wasn't a  _ murder weapon.  _ There's a problem, you know, when nobles start getting their hands on the law."

Marasi maintained a dignified silence.

"Captain, do you hear music?" Driars asked suddenly.

Marasi frowned, and tried to focus on the sounds around. "...Now that you mention it, yes. An organ grinder, I think? From the street, maybe."

"Ah. Yes. That would be it," said Driars. He sounded very tired, all of a sudden. "Listen. I've been here for three hours, so I think I'm going to call it a day, if you don't mind. If you've got any questions, go ahead and field them to the precinct…"

He trudged away into the mazework of buildings, and Marasi was left to reflect on just what was building in the city.

—-

There was nothing like alcohol to smash the brain back into shape after someone had been messing around in it, Wayne decided.

Next to him, MeLaan rested her head on the bar, eyes half-closed and a mostly-finished drink clutched in one hand. Wayne wasn't sure how she managed to hold her shape when she was this drunk. Then again, Wayne wasn't totally sure how he was able to hold his shape when he was this drunk, and he only had a few decades of practice. Surely MeLaan would be better at it.

The bar was loud and active, and getting more so. Someone was doing everything they could to pick a fight with...everyone, it seemed like. Wayne was pretty sure he'd heard directly contradicting political opinions rattled off in quick, inebriated succession.

"How you feelin', mate?" He mumbled, mostly to the bar but since MeLaan was on the bar it probably counted.

"..." MeLaan's voice was a little fuzzy. "Feeling very grateful for an aluminum skeleton, and I think that's all I'll say on the matter."

"Wish I could do that," Wayne mumbled. The burst of Soothing and Rioting felt like it still hadn't quite worn off, even five or six drinks in. "You kandra are cheatin'."

"There are tradeoffs," MeLaan said darkly, and drained her drink. Wayne turned to check on the progress of the brawl.

The fellow was good at starting bar fights, looked like. Real practiced hand. Someone threw a punch at him, and just by chance, that punch hit someone who'd really only been minding their own business, despite how obviously annoyed they were by all the arguing going on behind them.

He was good at the fighting bit, too. Too many people stopped between each move, to admire themself or look shocked. He flailed like a trapped cat, and was somehow landing more blows on the people around him than they were on him, though the tide was turning rather quickly.

"So are you gonna take me home or what?" MeLaan demanded.

"What?" Wayne asked.

"Well, we can't go to my place. I left a bunch of skeletons on the floor, and besides I don't have a bed for humans," MeLaan said.

"Uh…" Wayne said. "Ain't you drunk?"

"'Course I'm drunk," MeLaan said. "You're drunk. Wouldn't be fair if I wasn't."

"Weren't," Wayne said.

"Would...n't," MeLaan mumbled. "Do you want to or not?"

Wayne gave it some thought. Not that MeLaan wasn't fun, and unquestionably attractive, but being with her felt like she was using him as a substitute for something else that she wanted, and as for  _ him— _

Well, obviously MeLaan was Wayne's attempt to move on from Ranette. Who had been very conveniently unattainable for fifteen years, and consequently a very effective buffer for Wayne having to give any thought to what he might  _ actually  _ want—

Nope.

He wondered where Wax and Paalm had gone, and how that whole plan was going. Probably they were off somewhere making out above the mists now. Wayne wished he could say how he felt about that.

Wax should've been here, getting drunk with him.

"Ugh," MeLaan said, when Wayne didn't respond. "Wish Mara were here."

"What's goin' on there?" Wayne mumbled into his drink.

"I don't  _ know, _ " MeLaan said. "Ever since that little adventure with the Bands, it's been wasing the not of welcoming of the kandra with her!"

"...What?" Wayne asked.

"She's been ignoring me," MeLaan said.

"Why didn't you say that?"

"Truly couldn't tell you," MeLaan grumbled. "Thought we were getting along."

"Thought so too," Wayne said. "'Specially with the—"

"Uggghhhhh," MeLaan said.

"You know, I still think she might be a little put out on account of us, y'know—"

"Why? None of her business."

"Sure, only I'm her best friend, an' you're her...whatever you are—"

"Are you her best friend?" MeLaan asked.

"Well, she don't really got friends, does she?" Wayne pointed out. "There's Wax, an' me, an' you...is she friends with Steris?"

"I think they're trying," MeLaan mumbled.

"Okay, so that's…" Wayne attempted to count on his fingers, which were not doing him the favor of staying still.

"I think I'm her best friend, actually," MeLaan said.

"Well, that just seems unfair," Wayne said, and moved his glass a little to the side as the face of the man from earlier was mashed down into the bar where the glass had been a moment ago. He grabbed at the bar with one hand, holding on with a surprisingly firm grip as two people attempted to dislodge him, the other hand fumbling around behind the bar, out of sight.

"'Scushe me," muttered the man in the vague direction of MeLaan and Wayne, through bloodied lips. "But d'you hear muzhic?"

Wayne listened, and didn't hear anything but angry shouting.

"There's a cello playing outside," MeLaan reported.

"Ohhhhh, yeah, makes shenshe," the man slurred, before his free hand came up holding a rag, which he flung into the face of one of the people holding him, before allowing himself to be dragged free of the bar and back into the brawl.

MeLaan watched the fight for a few seconds, blinking slowly, then held up her glass in Wayne's direction. "To immensely complicated relationships?"

"To immensely...yeah, to that," Wayne said, and clinked his glass against hers.

Sigh.

—-

Perr woke up when the door opened.

Her day had been uneventful. She'd spent most of it wandering, trying to find anyone in the area looking to hire a seventeen-year-old whose primary experience was being a hired gun. Not that they didn't seem to have those here, but given Paalm's opinions on the city and her reactions to Perr's last team, it felt somehow ill-advised.

Then she'd found a place advertising itself as an all-you-can-eat buffet, which had turned out to be a lie and resulted in Perr being chased out by a Seeker.

So she'd come home to find Paalm still out doing...whatever Paalm did. She'd eaten dinner, which was a sandwich, and since there was still no furniture, she'd just gone to read in bed.

Whatever Paalm thought of the city, running water and ready access to gaslamps were things Perr was excited about. Though it did mean that as her eyelids had started to get heavy, she'd had to get up and extinguish the lamp before actually going to sleep.

Then the door opened and someone came in.

Perr's eyes snapped open, to not much effect since the room was pitch-black. She squinted, fumbling for her gun. It wasn't loaded, because she wasn't an idiot— she grabbed some bullets from her coat, which she'd draped over herself in the absence of a blanket, frantically sticking them into the chamber.

Apparently being able to load her gun in the dark  _ did  _ count for something. Perr went as still as she could. She could see a vague silhouette, and hopefully the person breaking into the apartment wouldn't see  _ her  _ as anything more than part of the decor if she didn't move too much. She sighted down, slowly and carefully.

"It's me, Perr," said the intruder. "Relax."

The voice...sounded different than the one that had left this morning. More masculine, inflectionless. The problem with rooming with a shapeshifter was that it was hard to know if it was her or not.

"How do I know?"

"You'll have to trust me," the intruder said dully. "Shoot me if you want, I guess. You'll wake the neighbors and someone might run for a constable."

"Not to mention you'll have a bullet in you," Perr said.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Want to see a magic trick?" The intruder held out their hand, and there were a series of squishing sounds and clatters, like small metal objects being extruded from flesh and left to fall to the ground.

Perr gulped.

"It's me, Perr," said Paalm, her voice sounding vaguely more like the voice Perr recognized. Perr decided it  _ probably  _ wasn't likely that there was another shapeshifter who knew the location of this apartment and that wished her some particular harm, and lowered her gun. "You still haven't slept?"

"I was asleep," Perr said.

"Oh," said Paalm. "Sorry about that. And...I didn't pick up furniture. Sorry about that too. I'll get that tomorrow." Her voice was still without inflection, inconsistently male or female, high or low, slipping between accents that Perr didn't recognize. There was a light thump as she tossed something onto the counter next to the stove, then a clunk that sounded like a gun being  _ thrown.  _ Then a heavier thump, like she was dropping a pack of something.

Perr felt like getting on the case of a Faceless Immortal about failing to pick up a table and chair was not a recipe for a long and healthy life. "Uh, if we're...going to be awake, can we turn on a light or two?"

"Go back to sleep," Paalm said. "I can see in the dark."

"...Oh." Perr was glad she had pajamas, then.

Perr took the bullets back out of her gun, tucking them back into her coat and setting the gun back next to the mattress, wrapped her coat around herself and did her best to go back to sleep.

It was a little difficult, when she could hear Paalm...could a Faceless Immortal reasonably be described as "puttering around"? Because it sounded like that was what Paalm was doing.

The shower was running, which also made it harder to sleep. Perr sat up with a sigh.

She could hear something from inside the shower.

...Was Paalm singing? Was that something Paalm could do? Perr supposed that strictly speaking, there was no reason Paalm shouldn't be able to sing, but it seemed like an odd habit for a thousand-year-old immortal shapeshifting lawman. Her voice was still inconsistent, but she could at least hold a note.

PAALM:  _ There should be a song here _ _   
_ _ Like, some kind of song here _ _   
_ _ Maybe a big apology number, with a full symphony _ _   
_ _ But there isn't a song here _ _   
_ _ No, I don't get a song here _ _   
_ _ There's no band playing music, no one singing but me _

_ Can't make me disappear _ _   
_ _ Can't be anywhere but here _ _   
_ _ Can't see anything but what's to be seen _

_ I almost had it all, now I'm singing alone _ _   
_ _ I could've had a full quartet, or at least a trombone _ _   
_ _ It was so close to being right, and I made it so wrong _ _   
_ _ And now I'm singing on my own _ _   
_ _ Because I don't deserve a song! _

_ I could hear a flute here _ _   
_ _ Or even a lute here _ _   
_ _ Or maybe, uh...a contrabassoon? Yeah, that big deep sound _ _   
_ _ A fife would inspire! _ _   
_ _ Or even a lyre! _ _   
_ _ Well sorry, kids, 'cause I'm the only liar around! _

_ I would take an overnight order _ _   
_ _ Of music class recorders _ _   
_ _ Being played by kids who want to be doing anything other than playing music because at the very least I can relate to feeling trapped in a tiny room while social problems beyond my comprehension unravel where I can't keep an eye on them! _

_ I almost had it all, now I'm singing alone _ _   
_ _ More instruments? Uh...there's no saxophone _ _   
_ _ I should've seen it coming, should've known all along _ _   
_ _ That I'd be singing on my own _ _   
_ _ Because I don't deserve a song! _

_ No, I don't deserve a song... _

Her voice trailed away.

"...Paalm?" Perr asked cautiously.

"Weren't you asleep?"

"Yeah, not so much now," Perr said.

Paalm's voice briefly perked up. "Wait, right, yes. Perr, you're Terris, aren't you?"

"What?"

"Are you a Sentry?"

"A...what?" Perr asked. "I mean, not that I don't know what a sentry is. But I pretty obviously ain't one, so—"

"A Ferring, I mean," Paalm said, almost excitedly. "Who stores wakefulness. That's why you're still awake, right?"

"Uh," said Perr, who was starting to get very worried. "I'm...uh, I'm awake because you just woke me up by singing, actually."

"Oh, of course," Paalm said. "Right."

"...I'm a bendalloy Ferring?"

Had that not been obvious? Weird.

"Perfect! Perfect," Paalm said, slightly manically, voice still randomly bouncing between entirely different accents. "Alright, so, if you're not sleeping, we'll take a late train to the Terris Village. According to Wax—" her voice hitched, "There's someone there who tracks every drop of Feruchemical blood in the city, which is where you're from—" What "So she'll be able to tell you everything about your history—" What "Because obviously you want to know, right? You said you don't remember your parents, everyone wants to remember their parents—" What

"Uh, Paalm, I'm going to turn on a light." Perr felt at the wall for the gaslamp, and found the sparker that she'd tucked into the crook of the frame. Paalm had finished her shower a while ago, presumably.

"Wait, wait, don't—"

Perr set the light, and was immediately very glad for the fact that she was using a sparker and not a match, because she dropped it immediately.

Paalm was still in the shower, and entirely naked, which normally would have left Perr very off balance—

(She was still sort of dealing with what Paalm had said the other day, about how she was supposedly not attracted to men. It seemed, on balance, accurate, and recontextualized a lot of moments throughout Perr's life.)

—Except for the fact that her skin and muscle had turned entirely transparent, showing a silvery skeleton, a pair of copper spikes, some jewelry, clumps of hair, and some sort of set of tubes terminating behind her jawbone. The meat of her torso had mostly flayed itself into wide flaps, her limbs had bled together into an amorphous mass, and the water pooled around her was filthy with blood and other substances Perr really didn't want to think about.

Perr was  _ still  _ fairly off-balance, but for other reasons than she'd expected to be.

A pair of eyes were knitting themselves together in Paalm's eye sockets.

"Uh," said Perr, and looked away politely.

The water ran again for a little while. Then there were some sounds Perr didn't want to think about, and then the rustling of cloth.

"...You can look."

Perr turned back to Paalm, who had dressed and turned back into something that was very close to human and very unsettling for the difference. Her skin was patchwork, her hair was matted against her head, eyes pupilless and mismatched, and her clothes and skin hung loose because it looked like she hadn't remembered to form any body fat whatsoever.

"Need a mirror to fix it properly," Paalm murmured, voice slurring as the side of her face sagged slightly. "Just...need a mirror. That's all."

"Uh, I don't think—" Perr started, feeling very out of her depth and significantly more so when Paalm started to cry. Deep, wracking sobs that left her braced against the sink.

Perr wasn't a great Pathian. She hadn't read the Words of Founding, and if they had anything in them about why one of the Faceless Immortals might burst into tears in front of her, or what to do about it when one did, she wasn't aware of it.

But she was, she hoped, a decent person, so she cautiously gave the sobbing kandra a hug. Paalm slumped against her, turning out to be more than twice Perr's weight, and Perr awkwardly lowered her to the ground.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Paalm whispered. "I have— I have no idea. I was coming back for this man, this wonderful man, the only person who ever made me want to be a person, and he doesn't want me. Everything for nothing."

"Uh," said Perr again, and did her best to put herself in the shoes of someone who would travel several hundred miles for a guy. "...Well, you got me out of the Roughs, right?"

"I didn't do you a favor, child," Paalm said, in the tones of someone reciting a mantra with her last breath. "This city is a deathtrap. All the time we have left is until we run out of money, and then you die—"

"I think it's possible to find jobs—" Perr started.

"I wasn't meant for preservation," Paalm said. "I ruin things. I ruin everything."

"I don't know what that means!" Perr said.

"I— I shouldn't be saying this to you," Paalm murmured. "I'm so sorry. You're only a kid."

"I'm  _ seventeen, _ " Perr said, and hoped very badly that this would be over soon.

"I'm—" Paalm trailed off. "I—" She subsided back into sobbing, and then simply slipped out of Perr's grasp, skin and muscle deforming as she stood up, swaying in place. "I— Okay, come on, get dressed, we're going to the Village!"

Perr backed away a little. Not that Paalm was armed, or even seemed capable of contemplating harm right now, but there was something to a woman doing her best impression of a slowly-melting marionette that encouraged a healthy distance, in Perr's opinion.

"When did you last sleep?" Perr asked.

"Well, uh—" Paalm said, and folded over like a house of cards, muscle oozing in every direction, skull staring sightlessly at Perr. The muscles twitched a little, so hopefully that meant she wasn't dead.  


"...Night, Paalm," said Perr, and extinguished the light, stepping around the kandra as she tried to get back to bed.

She didn't get a lot more sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~I Don't Deserve a Song~  
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EbIxsDRmIbGwf2yP16pevvESUZQGaTAh/preview?usp=sharing  
> Sure  
> —-  
> -high imperial...it's supposed to be "kandra non grata". I hate it here  
> -what are MeLaan and Wayne discussing? Is this another thing that went differently in BoM?  
> -paalm's having a long evening
> 
> -absolutely this update pace will not be continuing i've just been thinking about this fic a lot lately


End file.
